Back to Broady Page 3

  ‘Can we swim in it?’ Margie wanted to know.

  ‘We can Maggie, my mermaid. I doubt I could keep you out of it. But in the wintertime, just before Christmas, sometimes the lake is frozen over.’

  ‘Tell us about when you were little,’ I begged as I clung to him, the smell of onions and cabbage on his breath.

  ‘I was the baby of the family. My mum was Bridget and Dad was Thomas, like your brother. I had two brothers, Andrew, like your brother, and Paddy, like Seamus Patrick. My sisters were Bridie and Eileen. You know Aunty Eileen, who is married to Uncle Tom and the mother of your cousin, Ann. One day I will take you to Ireland and you will meet all your cousins.’

  As a child, I often dreamed of a Christmas like Dad’s, with real snow in the trees and reindeer and leprechauns like the ones on the card his brother sent all the way from the village of Inishmacatreer near Galway in Ireland.

  When I woke up, Dad was gone, but Margie was humming his song ‘When Irish eyes are smiling’.

  Voices, low and deep in the distance, wake me. I can’t hear who it is or what they are saying. I climb out of bed and tiptoe to the hallway outside the lounge room door. First it’s Uncle Ray’s voice I hear.

  ‘The doctors tried to sew it back, Jim,’ he says. ‘Told us the retina had detached, first it was just a small tear and then a full detachment.’

  ‘Is that right?’ It’s my dad talking softly now, almost a whisper, as I peep through the crack in the hallway door. ‘So, they can stitch the retina back onto the eye?’ he wonders aloud as he pours beer into the half empty glasses.

  I think about how they could sew Maurice’s eye and my stomach flips with fear. Did they use a needle and cotton like when Mum sews a button on my blouse? I squirm and make a face like I’m sucking a lemon as I imagine the needle going in my own eye.

  I want to ask questions, but I’m not supposed to be out of bed, sticking my nose and ears where I’m not wanted, so I stay quiet and still, hidden behind the door.

  ‘They thought they could sew it back, Jim. And the Professor, can’t think of his name, he was at it all night. You’d think they’d get it right. He can’t see, Jim. His eyes are open but he can’t see a bloody thing.’

  ‘Here, have one of these, calm the nerves,’ Dad says, as he flicks out the bright flame of the matchstick, sucks hard on a cigarette and passes the packet to Uncle Ray. He doesn’t answer, just sits there staring into the smoky haze over the table.

  ‘Maurice tells me that everything looks like a TV screen now,’ Uncle Ray begins. Stops and sniffs. It sounds like he’s crying.

  ‘So it’s not all black,’ Dad says.

  ‘No,’ Uncle Ray answers. ‘Just lots of small dots flickering, mostly grey but sometimes with colour, like hundreds and thousands on fairy bread.’

  I sneak around to the half-closed kitchen door and see Dad hugging big Uncle Ray. I think maybe he’s crying and I run away, fast as I can, to my bedroom and bury my head into my pillow. It smells of Vicks VapoRub. Tears spill out, even though I try hard not to cry. I kick my legs into the mattress, smash my fists into my eyes, shut tight so I can see the swirling spots for myself. What happened to his eyes? Why can’t they fix him? I wanted to ask them as they sat there, smoking and filling their glasses.

  Maybe I can ask Mum. I go to her, wanting to climb into bed with her, wrap my legs around her soft warm body but Margie is already there curled into the curve of Mum’s back. No room for me.

  Back in our bedroom, I climb into bed, slide down under the blankets and pray. To slow my breathing and stop the sobs, I concentrate on the prayer I know off by heart. ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, blessed art thou among women.’ I’ve learnt it from Mum. Sometimes I think she’s talking to herself but she tells me she’s praying. ‘Just talking to God,’ she says. ‘You should try it.’ I say the prayer now, over and over. I make a promise to God to be good. Maybe if I’m good for Mum, maybe if I’m more like Margie, helpful and happy and not scowling. Maybe then Mum won’t get sick and Maurice will get better.

  I love my great grandmother’s house with its bright statues of Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus and the candles burning in the bright red glass on the wall. We are in the car on the way to see her and our relatives for Christmas. I’m nursing Seamus in the back seat of our crowded Holden Prefect, choking on smoke as Mum and Dad puff away on Craven A cork-tipped cigarettes. Paul leans forward and winds the window down.

  Outside the street is busy and we can see children laughing and running under sprinklers, watering themselves as well as the grass. The grass is slowly burning, turning brown like my long, skinny legs that stick to the vinyl on the hot car seat.

  I watch the cars ahead, counting the white ones while we wait at the traffic lights in busy Sydney Road, Coburg.

  ‘Are we nearly there?’ I ask, longing to be with Nana Miriam. I can almost taste the sweet green and red icy poles she will have in her ice box out the back of her house.

  ‘Not far now,’ Dad says, turning to smile at me.

  ‘Muuummm,’ I call out. ‘Andrew won’t share the cordial.’ He digs his elbow into the side of my stomach and I scream. Suddenly the car jerks and the yellow pineapple crush spills over my new party dress.

  ‘Serves you right, you sook,’ Tom laughs. The car shudders and stops.

  ‘Bloody car,’ Dad moans.

  ‘Mind your language, Jim,’ Mum growls, pulling at her pleated skirt to fan herself.

  ‘Must be the starter motor.’

  Dad climbs out and lifts the bonnet of the car. Suddenly there’s a screeching noise in my ears, like someone blowing a whistle up close to my head. The bonnet falls on Dad’s hand. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ he yelps.

  ‘Jim, please. You know they’ll copy you.’

  ‘I think there’s something happened up ahead,’ Paul says, leaning halfway out the window to get a good look. He’s nine now and braver than anyone I know. He walked all the way home to Dallas from Aunty Eileen’s house in Kingsbury because she made him eat her soggy trifle.

  ‘Could be trouble at the Bluestone College,’ Dad says.

  ‘Pentridge?’ says Mum. ‘Quick, Cally, pass Seamus to me.’

  ‘What’s Pentridge?’ I ask as I plant my lips on my little brother’s cheek and hand him over the top of the car seat to Mum.

  ‘It’s jail, stupid,’ Andrew snaps at me.

  ‘Where ye will end up if yere not careful now,’ Dad says. ‘Wind up the window and lock the doors.’

  Just then a loud crack rings out like the bang our car makes when the boys push it to get it started.

  ‘Holy shit, that’s louder than a Penny Banger,’ Tom calls out.

  ‘Stop foolin’ around all of ye.’ Dad is wild. We sit still and quiet. Waiting. The waiting feels like forever. Then another bang and Dad shouts for us to get down on the floor. Seamus is crying as Mum covers his head with her arms. We scramble to the floor and Margie holds tight to my hand.

  ‘Do you really think it’s the prison,’ Mum whispers.

  I stretch my neck and peep out through the window. Someone is pulling at our car door, beside Paul. I can see a man’s dark pants and shirt. I can’t see his face. I don’t want to see his face.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ I cry and cuddle closer to Margie who is shaking now.

  ‘He’s got a gun,’ Tom shouts and points at someone running past the front of the car.

  ‘Stay down.’ This time it’s Mum who screams at us and we are silent and still for a long time before a policeman taps the window and tells us to drive on.

  There are lots of people at our Nana’s house when we arrive and she’s worried that we are so late. Nana Miriam is not my real nana because she’s dead. But Nane Miriam is the only nana I’ve got and she’s kind to me and sometimes comes to McIvor Street to look after us when Mum goes to hospital for a new baby.

  Some of my cousins are there and they’ve already opened their Christmas stockings and started on the icy poles.

  ‘Did
you hear about the escape?’ Uncle Kevin asks Dad.

  ‘We got caught in the middle of it.’

  ‘No kidding. It’s all over the radio now.’

  ‘One of them tried to get in the car.’

  ‘Looks like they shot a warden,’ Uncle Jack tells Dad.

  ‘They catch them yet?’

  ‘No. They’re still on the run.’

  ‘Any names?’

  ‘Ronald Ryan and Peter Walker.’

  Our new baby’s cries wake me and I make my way from the bedroom. I snuggle in close to Mum as she stands at the kitchen sink, her new purple quilted dressing gown soft on my cold face. Mum spoons the white powdered milk into the bottle, puts the lid on and shakes it up and down. Her fingertip covering the nipple. Our baby, another boy, screams in her arms, his mouth searching for the milk.

  ‘Shush, shush, little one,’ Mum hums to him and rocks him as she waits for the milk to cool. And she whispers his name, John Fitzgerald Egan. I remembered my dad telling me he was named after the President of America, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

  ‘Can I give Johnny his bottle? Please Mum?’

  ‘No, you should be in bed asleep. You have school tomorrow.’

  ‘I don’t want to go. I want to stay home with you and Margie and my little brothers.’

  ‘You have to go. You’re in grade one now.’

  Baby Johnny stares up at me now, his mouth searching for the rubber teat as Mum gently eases it into his mouth. Big blue eyes move from Mum to me, and then his tiny hands clutch the bottle. When he’s finished sucking, Mum wraps him tight in the rug and pats his back as he perches on her right shoulder.

  ‘He’s full as a googie egg,’ I laugh, playing with the fuzzy hair on top of his head.

  ‘Now, back to bed for you.’

  Mum takes me to my bedroom, there’s a stale smell of old bananas in school bags and wet towels on the floor. I have the top bunk now that I’m six and Margie sleeps below. Andy is on the top bunk opposite ours and Seamus on the bottom. In the next room are the older boys, Paul and Tom. In the front room – the one closest to the street – Mum and Dad sleep with Johnny’s cot beside their bed.

  I can’t sleep. I count for a while and then I’m up again. I crawl on to the couch next to my mum. She brushes her palm across the baby’s forehead, encouraging his eyes to close. Then she lifts his soft cheek to her lips and kisses him. I copy her and she rocks him until he falls asleep.

  ‘Can I have a story?’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘About when we came to Dallas. How old was I?’

  ‘You were just a baby, just like Johnny. I carried you from the car and Paul wrote the date in the wet concrete out the front, May, 1962.’

  ‘Was our Margie born then?’

  ‘No. There were only four of you. Paul, the one I called the Lion Tamer, who could charm anyone with his big blue eyes and sensitive moods. And there was Tommy, only twelve months younger, the Thinker. He could sit for hours in the same spot. Once I left him behind at church because he was so quiet. Sister Mary came running up to the car with him in her arms. I felt so silly. And, of course, Andy was here with us that first day. Mister Mischief, they called him, the cheeky one racing up and down McIvor Street, up to no good.’

  ‘What did you call me?’

  ‘Princess. Princess Caroline, but you soon grew into more of a tomboy than a princess, that’s for sure.’

  ‘And our Margie? What’s her other name?’

  ‘Angel Face. She was the first of our babies to arrive in McIvor Street, like a gift from God. Then came Seamus, the Happy Wanderer, who kept escaping. Always outside, digging up worms or talking to Suzie, our dog. He looked so Irish, so much like his father.’

  As I watch Mum smiling and cuddling baby Johnny I wonder what new name she will give to him.

  ‘The problem is,’ she says to me, ‘you all grow up too quick.’

  It was Christmas morning and someone was shaking my arm.

  ‘Wake up, Cally,’ Andy whispered. ‘He’s been.’

  ‘Father Christmas?’ I squealed in my croaky morning voice. I rubbed at the sleep in my eyes. We had already made the trek to the Christmas tree in the middle of the night, five of us ready to pounce on the wrapped presents under the fairy lights. And then the growl from the door and Mum shouting, ‘Go back to bed. Now.’

  ‘Whoddya think? Jack Frost,’ Andy said. ‘It’s morning, we can open our presents.’ Then he was off again.

  I woke Margie and together we charged to the lounge room. Green and gold wrapping paper covered the whole of the lounge room floor. Empty boxes were tossed aside. Paul was bouncing a new football. Tommy was setting up a game of Mouse Trap and Andy started practising his new tricks on the fancy skateboard Santa left for him under the tree. I found my Christmas stocking on the mantelpiece and Barbie inside, waiting for me. Someone said she wasn’t a real Barbie but I didn’t care. Margie had one the same.

  I tucked the pretty, naked Barbie under my arm as Dad lifted me up to the bench to help him cook breakfast.

  ‘You can crack the eggs,’ Dad said as he dropped the bacon into the sizzling fry pan.

  ‘Careful of the hot fat.’ He shifted me to the side. ‘We’ll cook up a feast.’

  Dad sang his favourite song about the sun on Galway Bay and Margie came to the kitchen to help. Dad rubbed his nose into my cheek and tickled me with his scratchy beard. His smoky breath warm and beer-free.

  ‘What’s that?’ I said, pointing to a thick round sausage of black mush with little white flecks. It sat uninviting next to the ripe tomatoes from the Spiteri’s garden. In my fingers, it felt soft and cold.

  ‘Black pudding.’

  ‘What’s black pudding?’

  ‘A delicacy, my love.’

  ‘Can I have some?’

  ‘Sure, first we have to cook it.’

  Andy laughed at me and called to Tom and Paul, ‘She’s going to eat it.’

  ‘Never mind them,’ Dad said and handed me a piece of the cooked sausage.

  Biting through the hard skin, the soft texture inside oozed into my mouth. I tried to swallow it but the mush was thick and disgusting. It got stuck in my throat like the boiled cabbage Aunty Eileen made me eat. I forced it down. Swallowed it to please Dad.

  ‘Have a look at her face,’ Andy said, holding his stomach, bent over with laughter. ‘Yuk. You just ate animal blood. That’s disgusting.’ I coughed some up and threw it at him. ‘I hate you,’ I screamed. I saw Dad laughing too, like he was on their side. ‘All of you.’

  ‘Enough of your silly little tantrums,’ Mum shouted as I ran from the room.

  Margie found me in the bathroom with the laundry basket against the door to keep them out. I let her in and she gave me some of her chocolate coins from her Christmas stocking. I sucked the chocolate until it melted and got rid of the horrible taste.

  As soon as it was daylight we climbed through the hole in our back fence to see the Gleesons. One after the other we climbed through, carting some of our presents with us.

  The blue plastic walls of their brand-new swimming pool flapped in the hot wind. It made a whistling noise like someone was blowing in my ear. Russell dragged a garden hose across the backyard to fill the pool with water. He shouted for Nicky to turn on the tap and the water gushed out. Paul and Tom squirted us with their new water pistols while we waited for the pool to fill up. Flies buzzed around my ears as the sun warmed my face. Then it was time to climb in and we ran around the edge making a whirlpool. We floated on our backs with the ripples closing over us. Margie and Nicky duck dived to collect the coloured rings on the bottom of the pool. I was too scared to put my head under the water. Then they made me count while they floated face down. Margie was the youngest but she could stay under forever. Floating like a dead fish.

  Uncle Ray brought Maurice to the ladder by the pool and helped him into the water. He held on tight to his blow-up Goofy Dog with one arm and linked the other arm through his dad’s. Mauric
e stiffened as the cold water lapped at his waist. He paddled around the pool, fingers like eyes finding the edge.

  I would often watch Maurice – almost spy on him – whenever he walked past our house. Even at seven, I knew I shouldn’t stare but his blindness fascinated and scared me. He was different and I was curious. One weekend when he was home from boarding school I heard him laughing. He was walking between Russell and Nicky holding their arms, acting as if everything was normal. Only he was wearing dark sunglasses like Roy Orbison. I peeped through the venetian blinds and gasped as he tripped on one of our bikes lying across the footpath. I held my breath, wanting to run to him.

  Instead I ran to my mum’s bedroom: the blinds closed tight against the daylight and the window propped open with an empty bottle of Mylanta. Stale cigarette smoke wafted through the room. A pale brown liquid dripped from the bedside table to a puddle on the mat by the bed. A saucer of cigarette butts and cold coffee spilling over. I crawled in beside Mum staring at the ugly bedhead of gold and brown, a cast-off from the Maltese neighbours who won TattsLotto. They sold their house and furniture and Dad said they had moved to the other side of town. Mum woke and leaned into me, held my arm across her stomach and groaned.

  ‘Pass me the bottle on the table, love.’

  I helped her unscrew the top and she shook a few small, yellow pills into the palm of her hand. She swallowed them with the leftover cold coffee and was soon fast asleep again. The hot wind flapped at the sheet of plastic at the far end of her window. The tape barely covered the jagged glass and hole left when Paul kicked the football through the window. Someone was knocking, I thought. I was excited by the idea of a visitor. Maybe it was just the wind. And then I heard my friend, Karen, from the bottom end of McIvor Street, calling me.

  ‘Cally, open the door.’ Karen was a year older than me and had her school case with her.

  ‘It’s not school today,’ I said.

  ‘I know. I’m running away.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘I’ve come to live with you.’

  ‘Did you ask your mum?’