Growing Up in Flames Page 3

  Then I light it.

  The flames race through the cane, starting along the line of petrol, spreading almost instantly into the field. I walk out along the trench and cross the road at the other end of the field, ready to watch Kenna burst out of the cane like the fire gave birth to her. Ready to send a message.

  Cane fires are common here, part of the harvest process. They burn the fields before they cut the cane. It’s a few months early for that, but no one will panic or call the firies. Even if she goes to the police, no one will find this fire suspicious.

  It’s dangerous to walk through the cane, everyone knows that. Farmers harvest early sometimes. It’s polite to let nearby houses know so they can bring the laundry inside; some farmers aren’t polite.

  I watch as the flames reach up above the cane. A funnel of smoke forms in the sky, but the drift pattern makes it look like it’s pouring down into the cane, forming into fire on the ground the way steam forms water as it settles.

  I lean against a tree, jerrycan still in my hand. I don’t want to lose another one.

  I wait.

  James

  Twenty Years Earlier

  After three hours sitting by the riverbed, I’m starting to wonder if this’ll work. I haven’t caught a pelican before.

  The fish is warm in my hand, already starting to smell. I’m sitting there with a loop of thin rope around it ready to be pulled tight. My legs ache from not moving. I can’t even feel pins and needles in my feet anymore. And the fuckin’ birds just keep floating past, turning to look at the fish but not going for it. I watch them from the corner of my eye.

  Maybe I should be in the water.

  Two pelicans sail down the river like paper boats. Something larger floats between them. It’s not until she rolls her head in the water to look at me that I get a proper look.

  Ava Olsen.

  I know her the way I know everyone from school. Maybe we spoke once? She isn’t anything special. She dances, like girls do. I think she won something for it last year. She’s never said much to me, but she knows who I am. Everyone at school does.

  She stands, and the birds flap hard, pulling their heavy bodies from the river to get up and away. Ava wades towards me, water streaming from her T-shirt. It clings to her skin.

  She’s surefooted on the rocky bank; I’m frozen there with a fish in one hand. She reaches out for the fish and tosses it over her shoulder. It splashes into the shallows and I’m left holding a loop of rope.

  She laughs at me. How dare she do that? I stand up, but Ava doesn’t back away. She’s doubled over with laughter, dripping wet with feet covered in river mud, black bra showing in lacy ridges through her shirt.

  I wonder if she cares. Then I start laughing too. The fish doesn’t really matter. We grin stupidly as we struggle to breathe.

  It’s the first time I can remember laughing like that.

  I think about her all week. I go back to the spot at the river, thinking I might meet her there again. I try standing in the water with a fish. Eventually, I do catch a pelican.

  It floats close to me, paddling with its feet. I stand, freezing and still, until it pokes its beak at the fish. As its gullet brushes my hand, I drop my wrist and let the loop fall around its beak. When the rope hits the feathers on its back, the bird startles.

  I drop the fish and take hold of the rope with both hands as the pelican flaps and strains. With a jerk, I drag the struggling bird to the bank and reel in the rope until I can grab its beak. I wrap it shut with the rope and pin its wings to its body with my knees.

  Now what? I really just wanted to see if I could do it.

  I stroke its neck until it calms, the way I do for pigeons. Then I unlace the shoes I left by the river. The pelican is heavy, but I carry it to the nearest tree and use the laces to tie its foot to a low branch.

  When I let go, it tries to flap free but crashes into the ground. Its beak is still firmly tied closed. After a while, it stops trying and sits, breathing heavily.

  I leave it there. I’ll check on it tomorrow.

  At home, I knock on the door to Dad’s study and wait. He’s squinting at papers without his glasses, denying his ageing eyes. He sighs when he looks at me.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  I have learnt it’s best to be direct. He hates wasted time. ‘I went out for a walk.’

  ‘Your mother needed you.’

  A twinge pinches my gut. Mum isn’t well. She spends most days lying in bed so Dad can work in peace. It’s my job to stay close so she doesn’t have to yell when she needs something.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ There’s no point in saying much else.

  ‘Was your walk more important than your mother’s health?’

  ‘I just needed a break.’

  His expression darkens. ‘Do you see us taking a break? I’m working to bring money into this house, your mother got up and cooked dinner for the family, and you’re off taking in the bloody fresh air.’

  ‘Yes, Dad.’ Once I made the point that he could have cooked dinner. Only once.

  ‘She called for you, James.’ He goes back to his papers. ‘She kept calling, and you weren’t here.’

  Then why didn’t you answer her? I clench my teeth to keep the words in. It’s a fear of mine—that I won’t be able to control what I’m saying. I imagine myself watching as my body just lets it rip. Sometimes I bite my lips to make sure they can’t open. Sometimes I make them bleed.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say again as I leave.

  There’s a vacuum around my mum. Sound can’t get in. Whenever she hugs me, I stop daring to breathe. Her dress is never creased, and her hair is always perfect. Even when she has one of her headaches, she lies on her bed like she’s been posed.

  I never go into her room until I’m sure that she’s breathing. One day, I’ll be the one to find her dead on the bed, head on a pillow. Her makeup still perfect.

  ‘Mum?’ I whisper.

  Her head rolls slowly to face me.

  ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here.’ I kneel next to her bed.

  She offers me a small smile. ‘That’s fine, darling. I’m just not feeling well. You must have had something more important to do.’

  ‘No,’ I hang my head. ‘It wasn’t more important.’

  Mum reaches out a feeble hand. The back of her forefinger rubs the scattered bristles on my chin. ‘Obviously, it was.’ She rolls over, away from me.

  When I see Ava at school she nods, hinting at our private joke, and I nod back. We have a secret. It makes it worth going to school, which I’ve never had much time for.

  At lunch, I sneak into the corridor behind the art building where they keep the bins. A pigeon sits on the edge of a dumpster, combing its feathers with its beak. It coos softly, ribcage expanding and contracting.

  I wait at the entrance to the corridor and coo back. The bird opens its eyes and takes me in, head flicking around to see me better. I stay still until its eyes close again, then I approach it from the side and keep my movements small.

  I pull a sandwich crust from my pocket and crumble some onto the bin lid. The bird stirs, and pecks around for the scraps. Once it’s had a taste, I drop more crumbs, closer to me this time.

  When the bird is at the edge of the bin, I clap my other hand on its back, pinning it down. Panicky feet scratch at the plastic lid. It tries to move its wings, but I flip it over and adjust my grip to keep them folded neatly in place. Its heart thumps as I stroke down its chest. After a minute, the bird’s breathing deepens. When I take my hands away, it lies still.

  I put it in the front pocket of my hoodie.

  Mr Gerard is easy to dislike. He does roll call outside the classroom and makes everyone wait if a student is late. He teaches English like he wrote the books. As far as he’s concerned, the girls should listen quietly, and the boys are too dumb to bother with. The most positive thing I’ve heard him tell a student was that her work wasn’t as bad as he expected. That was Ava.

  He leaves his classroom windows open, which is a mistake. Birds might fly in. They might sneak into his desk. It should be expected, really.

  It isn’t until he opens his drawer for a pen that he finds the pigeon. It bursts out in a flurry. Students jump and gasp from around the room. The pigeon hits the ceiling and races across to the far wall.

  ‘Sit down! Sit down!’ Mr Gerard flaps his hands.

  The show ends when the pigeon hits the ceiling fan and drops onto Lauren McKenzie’s desk. It’s dead—a couple of girls scream as grey feathers float to the floor.

  Mr Gerard is backed against the wall, breathing heavily, eyes wild. He looks around the room.

  So does Ava: mouth agape as her eyes flick from person to person. I like how her emotions are so open. The skinny boy next to her with thick glasses, Alex, whispers something into her ear. She looks straight at me.

  She’s smiling.

  I ride my motorbike home with a grin I can’t shake. I cut the engine a couple of hundred metres from the house.

  ‘Mum?’ I whisper from the kitchen door.

  She’s bent over a pot, stirring mechanically. It’s probably a stew. We have a lot of stews. Dad won’t touch ‘foreign food’. Tinned spaghetti is about as far as he’ll go.

  ‘Hi, darling.’ She doesn’t turn.

  How do I start? I don’t usually talk to her about what’s on my mind. When I have problems, I deal with them alone. But this time trial and error won’t cut it.

  ‘I met a girl…’

  The wooden spoon clatters into the pot. My mother spins to face me, her hair neatly falling back into place a second after she stops. ‘What girl?’

  ‘Just someone I go to school with. I was thinking—’

  ‘What girl, James?’

  I gulp, feeling the name pulled out of me. ‘Ava Olsen.’

  ‘That girl. I see.’ Mum purses her lips. ‘That girl will end up just like her mother. They say it’s in the blood, you know. There are those that beat cancer and those that don’t. Her mother was always weak. No one was surprised when she died.’ She sighs dramatically. ‘Not her fault, of course; some people are just born that way. But Ava Olsen, oh!’ She clicks her tongue. ‘And that horrible incident with her brother. Poor boy.’

  I clamp my teeth around my bottom lip.

  ‘Has she let you touch her?’ Her words drip venom. ‘What have you done?’

  ‘Nothing, Mum.’ Although it’s the truth, my face gets hot. I can’t look at her.

  She jabs her wooden spoon at me. ‘Filthy boy!’ Stew splatters the floor. ‘I didn’t raise you to go out and rut like a dog with the first bitch that comes along.’

  I’m stunned. All I wanted was a little advice.

  ‘All that dancing—the things they wear.’ She presses a palm to her head. Opens the cupboard and reaches for her pills. ‘Go and explain all of this to your father. I don’t know why you intentionally upset me like this when you know I’m supposed to be resting.’ She turns her back on me.

  There’s no way out of this—if I don’t tell Dad, she will: there’s no choice to be made here. Anyway, choices are for people. I feel like a zoo animal, performing tricks and licking myself. Mum wants me here in this house, not looking at girls. Not leaving. She’s my zookeeper.

  When I go in to see Dad, I take his belt, the one from his time in the army. I know the drill.

  It’s a few weeks before I ask Ava out.

  The weekend of the Easter Show. I stay in town after school on the Thursday and wander the sideshows and rides. Buy a toffee apple that glues my teeth together and watch the kids moving in flocks, painted like superheroes and cats.

  A crackling voice makes garbled announcements over the showground’s old PA system. I find the main pavilion and take a seat to finish off the last of my toffee apple. The local karate school is wrapping up its demonstration with a reminder about the address of the ‘dojo’, which is a shed out the back of the preschool.

  It’s ages before the dance competition starts, but I don’t mind. I’m enjoying my time out. Who knows what’s waiting at home? I’ve left the house without permission before but I’ve never just not gone home.

  Girls roam the show in twos and threes, dressed in short skirts and midriff tops. Boys follow, trying to work their way in. By the end of the night, they’ll peel off in couples; kiss, make promises. Some will lie down by the riverbank, hiding in the shadows. Animals.

  Ladies and Ge…dancers…representing their studios… the stage. The crackling speaker delivers its message in pieces.

  The first dancers walk onto the stage. They start with the kids, chubby thighs stuffed into pink tights. I sit through them patiently, but it’s not even dancing. When they clomp across the stage it nearly drowns out the music. The older groups come up, and boys start catcalling, shouting ‘yeah, baby’ and ‘take it off ’. A couple of heads snap around to stare them down.

  Then they call her name. ‘Ava Olsen. Teacher: Anna Taylor.’

  The other dancers rush onto the stage, checking their positions and cracking their faces in stupid grins. Ava walks up the stairs slowly. Focused. She doesn’t look at the audience. She doesn’t look at me. She stands poised and ready, her eyes somewhere else.

  When one of the boys calls out at her as his friends laugh, I want to poke the stick from my toffee apple through his eye. I tear my eyes away to watch Ava.

  The music swells and breaks into a quick rhythm. Jazz, I guess. Music rich people listen to. I don’t know it.

  Ava’s body twists and bends like the music is pulling her strings. Her head follows her limbs a second after they move, trying to catch up. Like her body’s out of control. I know nothing at all about dancing, but I know it’s about the things your body does when your mind’s not watching.

  I make sure I’m waiting where she’ll come out. I bring the bike there and lean on the handlebars, like James Dean in that picture.

  When she walks out, she looks surprised to see me there, though I’m fairly sure she noticed me earlier.

  ‘Hey,’ she says. Her hair goes all the way to her bum.

  ‘Do you want to go out some time?’

  Ava smiles nervously. ‘Yeah?’ She shrugs.

  I like how she blushes. ‘Give me your number. I’ll call you.’

  She tells it to me and I nod. Alex, the boy with the glasses, appears beside her. A sick feeling floods my gut when I realise he’s waiting for Ava. He’s walking her home.

  ‘Do you want me to write it down?’ She moves to undo the zipper on her bag.

  I shake my head. ‘I’ll remember it,’ I say confidently.

  ‘I didn’t know you were so into dancing.’ Alex winks. ‘What did you think of Ava’s piece?’ He puts his arm around her.

  ‘I liked it,’ I say, feeling dumb. ‘I liked how she wasn’t smiling.’

  Alex nods, stroking his chin. ‘Hmm…yes. I love it when girls don’t smile.’ He breaks off, laughing.

  I want to break every bone in his spineless body.

  Ava shrugs off his arm. ‘Everyone else smiles like idiots the whole time. I don’t want to be like that.’

  I could tell her now that I love her, but I can’t afford to do crazy things. People already talk about Dad and his war stories and the way they never see Mum anymore.

  I rev the engine and wave to Ava before tearing out of the showground car park. I hope it looks impressive. I repeat her number to myself under my breath until I’m out of sight around the corner. Then I grab paper and a pen from my jacket.

  I wait a week to call her. I make myself do it. I want her to want me. It’s hard, though. Every night I imagine her giving up and calling Alex. I can still hear his laugh—the way he assumed I’m stupid.

  ‘Hello?’ I wonder if she always answers the phone in her house, or if she’s spent the last week rushing to get it.

  ‘Hi, it’s James.’

  ‘Hi.’ It’s slightly long. Relieved?

  ‘I think I owe you a date.’

  ‘Is that so?’ She sounds playful.

  ‘Well, I was thinking Friday, but if that’s no good for you…’ I play back.

  She pauses. ‘I can’t really do Friday.’

  This tactic. I’m disappointed she feels like she has to play hard to get. ‘Oh, well, maybe some other time then.’

  ‘It’s just, I have a family thing. It’s a night that we have every year, and I have to be here for it. I’m free on Saturday?’

  Good delivery—I imagine she’s been practising it for when I called. Maybe one of her friends told her to say it. Claim the power from the start.

  ‘I get it,’ I tell her. ‘Maybe another time.’

  I don’t hang up. I just wait for what feels like a long time. She doesn’t have my number, and if she lets me disconnect I won’t call back. I won’t be humiliated.

  ‘What time do you want to pick me up on Friday?’

  She’s waiting out the front when I pull up on the bike. I told her eight o’clock but I make sure I don’t arrive until ten past, just to be sure I won’t have to go inside. I don’t want some lecture from her father about getting her back by whatever time. She’ll be back when we’re done.

  Ava smiles when she sees me. She’s wearing washed-out jeans that show off her legs. I like that she thought not to wear a skirt. I pat the seat behind me and she hops on. I’m not wearing a helmet, but I offer her one. I don’t want her hair ruined before the night even starts.

  I pull out fast onto the road. She holds me tight, pressed against my back and I can feel the swell of her breasts. Her arms are around my waist for the first few corners. When she relaxes a little she shifts away and moves her hands to my hips. My back feels cold.

  We ride to the riverbank at the foot of Kendric Bridge. I park the bike beside the road and take the food out of the top box on the back. That box holds solutions to all sorts of problems. I’m constantly adding things and taking them out, refining my kit. Tonight, it holds a picnic.

  We find a seat on a big rock by the river with the water lapping below us. I spread out bread, cheese and salad. It’s all I could put together. One shift a week at the butcher’s only goes so far, and it’s not like I can ask my parents. As it is, I’ll have to siphon some petrol from Dad’s car to make it through the week.