Inbetween Days (7 page)

‘I don't get it,' I said.

‘I was shunted forward a year at school. Then another. I was unable to say or write anything without scrutiny. My mother had been told that something wondrous—not plain old weird, as she suspected—had sprung from the murky Jolley gene pool, and so began my re-education. Expensive, fruitless music lessons, summer school, maths extensions, tutoring, even way-out-of-town appointments with a psychiatrist who slurped Cup-a-Soup between puerile questions and licked his beard like a cat.

‘When I was twelve, I had a continuing bout of diarrhoea and stomach cramps accompanied by fatigue and weight loss. Dr Ames said my symptoms were typical of a child with a nervous disposition. He told me it was all in my head. That afternoon I stole a toaster from his clinic's staffroom and turned it into a defibrillator. I didn't allow for the probability that his receptionist would be the toast-eater. She was okay, just shaken. I never claimed responsibility but somehow my mother knew, so she made plans to ship me out to my uncle's place in Melbourne. By the way, I self-diagnosed. A slide, an electron microscope and a smear will do it. It turns out eating pizza without washing your hands after playing cow-shit-frisbee with Roland Bone can result in an explosive case of giardiasis.'

I laughed. ‘That's pretty detailed.'

‘Anyway, I was happy to leave. Better to go elsewhere, someplace people haven't already made up their minds.'

‘If it helps, I never did make my mind up about you.'

He gave me a twitchy smile. ‘So.' He nodded at the house. ‘You're visiting?'

‘Yeah, but I don't go inside.'

Ask me why
, I thought.
Ask me.

He didn't. ‘Your house is the only building in the whole of Mobius with limestone bricks.'

‘I'm sure you're going to tell me why this is relevant.'

‘It isn't relevant, it's just interesting. Have you ever looked at them?'

‘I've been really busy.'

‘They're layers and layers of history. I used to go over them with a magnifying glass, trying to identify the fossils inside.'

‘Uninvited, I might add,' I said. ‘At least now I know why you were lurking in our yard.'

He stood. ‘I've got to go.'

‘Me too,' I said, but I didn't get out of the tyre.

‘Promise me you'll tell me if I look ridiculous driving my mother's car.' He reached into his jeans pocket, jangled some keys and crossed the road. He folded himself into a tiny hatchback.

From where I was sitting, it looked like he couldn't sit upright. He did look ridiculous.

I left the tyre swinging and trudged along our driveway. Music was still coming from Dad's shed. As I moved closer, I could see him through the dirty window, bobbing his head like a maniac. Dad was short and bald; I couldn't remember a time when he'd had hair. Sometimes, when I looked at him, it took me by surprise to see my own blue eyes staring back. Trudy and I were so like Ma, it was as if she'd created us all by herself, and Dad had wandered into our lives when the first part was over.

My father was head-banging. Dad being in the shed was normal—whenever he'd got a whiff of tension or pending calamity, he'd be out there, bowed over his bench, making his wood carvings—but this was out of character. Another omen, more proof of change. What next: a convertible and a toupee?

Jeremiah Jolley chose that moment to reverse out of his driveway, tooting the horn. Dad froze and looked up. I ducked behind the corner of the house. A few seconds later the music shut off and the shed door creaked open.

I took off, hurdled Mrs Bradley's dividing fence and kept running until I was out of sight. Some revelations I wasn't quite ready for.

CHAPTER SIX

I could spend hours rearranging the furniture in my room. That night I moved my bed four times, although it could only really go one way without blocking the door or barring the window.

I liked small spaces. The forest—I didn't see it as a vast and frightening void, but as a chain of a million contained spaces linked by trees. I liked my small town the way it was, with only one way in and out. Moving furniture was one way to stop feeling like scattered confetti.

My furniture: bed, mattress, side table, bookcase, rug. I owned the video recorder but not the television, the cushions but not the couch, a set of hanging cutlery, the hammock on the front deck. Only five white plates remained from the set of eight I'd had when I moved in, and three of my crystal water glasses were chipped but still usable. I had brought brand-new belongings for my spanking-new life, nothing borrowed, gifted or stolen. Four hundred and sixteen dollars hidden in an envelope under the mattress, plus the loose change in my money box, and roughly ninety cans of tuna: mine.

It pleased me that the number of dollars under my bed matched the number of diamonds in Bent Bowl Spoon—until I remembered I'd found a new diamond. I stole one dollar from Trudy's purse to make up the difference, then put it back because it would mean I owned everything in my room except that dollar. Every one of my actions had an equal and opposite effect; everything I did threw out the balance. I was sure there was some kind of theory that rationalised my thinking, but I hadn't stuck around in school long enough to find out. It scared me that I was starting to believe I might have to stand completely still—with my eyes closed and my fingers in my ears—and let the universe go on without me in order not to screw things up. Still, I didn't
feel
crazy, just desperate for my feet to find the bottom.

The bed ended up back where it started.

‘Are you done making that godawful racket?' Trudy whined. She was lying on the couch reading a magazine, slapping one sandal against the heel of her foot. She looked like she was still wearing yesterday's make-up.

‘Did you get the phone reconnected?' I asked.

She hesitated for a beat. ‘Nope.'

‘Why not?'

‘Could've, would've, should've. Didn't.'

‘So, what did you do with the money I gave you for the phone bill?'

Trudy waved her free hand. ‘You know, food. Cleaning products.'

‘
Cleaning
products?'

‘Incidentals.'

‘The
fuck
, Gertrude.'

‘We needed bleach and mouthwash because, incidentally, you have a dirty mouth.
Jacklin
.'

I picked up the wall-phone receiver. ‘Hello? Hello? Is that you, life? We must have a bad connection. Are you there?' I held it out to Trudy. ‘There's nobody there. Here, you try. No?' I pressed it back to my ear. ‘Sorry, I'd love to be with you, life. I hope you'll still be there, life, when this phone is reconnected. Hello?' I sighed and replaced the receiver. ‘She hung up.'

‘Who did?'

‘My
life
!' I yelled. I made a noise like a strangled parrot and flounced off to my bedroom. After a few minutes of pacing, I strolled back out, calmer, ready for round two.

‘We need to talk,
Jam Stain
,' I said.

‘Ready when you are,
Maximus Tittimus
,' Trudy answered. She folded her magazine and tucked it down the side of the couch.

‘Who told you that?'

‘Ma.'

‘How does she know?'

‘Apparently they called her that in high school, too.'

So now my nickname was borrowed. Second-hand. When I'd first noticed boys staring at my boobs, I'd believed:
one part of me is beautiful
. It was enough for me back then. I folded my arms over my chest.

‘When did you talk to Ma?'

‘We didn't talk. We shouted.'

‘I asked you when.'

‘I don't know…two, three days ago. Why do you care?'

‘I don't. I just didn't think you two were speaking.'

‘Sometimes she calls into the pub to ask me about you,' Trudy said flatly. ‘And, more often than not, she takes the opportunity to remind me that I screwed up my own life and that there's a special place in hell for me if I drag you down to my level.'

‘I'm sorry,' I said. I didn't know what I was apologising for. ‘We both know Ma has never forgiven you for leaving.'

‘You don't get it, do you?' Trudy spat. ‘I didn't
leave
. Anyway, she's not mad at me. She doesn't care about me. She's mad at you—you weren't supposed to turn out like this!'

Like what? All I did was work and save and feed a starving cat and hold back my sister's hair while she threw up, and stare at my old house because I didn't feel I could knock on the door, and wait, wait, wait as my world kept shrinking.

‘How did we get from me asking what you did with my money to you lecturing me? You're turning into Ma!'

‘And you're turning into me!' Trudy fired back. ‘If I don't call you on your bullshit, Jack, who will?'

‘Thank you for being honest,' I said.

‘My pleasure.'

‘And fuck you for being mean.'

She gave me the finger and picked up her magazine.

The next morning I skipped breakfast, slung my satchel over my shoulder and went to the forest. I couldn't call Alby from home to tell him I was taking an extra day, and I didn't bother with the phone box. I liked the aimlessness of these days off. Maybe I wouldn't go back.

Gypsy followed me until the bitumen ended. I could have sworn there was an apology in her expression. The road started to wind and the gravel was slippery; her old joints couldn't take it. I slapped her rump and she turned back. I told her to stay off the road; she'd take her usual shortcut home, through the trees.

When I reached the gate and the Nula State Forest sign, I was breathing hard and sweating.

Nula: it meant here, there and everywhere. The sign said the forest started here but there was no edge to something that big; it didn't even stop when it reached our backyard, not quite two kilometres away. Like our neighbours, we'd just carved out a space in the thick of it. The forest was in my blood. I knew its paths like the lines on my palms; I knew where not to tread, where the mine shafts were hidden. Most people thought the place was evil but they were wrong—people did this to the forest, not the other way around.

There were four cars in the car park. The air was still but distant voices were coming from the main track—probably bushwalkers. Near the beginning of the track there was a map on a board, a donation box and a unisex long-drop toilet. The map showed the walking trails, but over the years new paths had been worn into the forest floor. Visitors were supposed to sign in to the guestbook but they rarely did—they wrote creepy comments or drew hangmen instead.

I touched each car's bonnet with my hand. Three were new-looking four-wheel drives, the engines still warm. The fourth was a low, white Subaru with a large dent in the rear passenger door. The metal was cool and leaves were piling up in the grille. I peered through the dirty windows—empty.

As I headed up the main track, a red wattlebird hopped along in front of me, barking calls, and I could make out the hulking shadow of Pryor Ridge through the trees up ahead. We locals knew that most of the people who'd never come out had been found there. The maps and walking trails led away from the ridge, but it was as if they were drawn to the darkest place, dark like their minds, and risked getting hopelessly lost or falling down a mine shaft to find it. I knew that made no sense. I had lived with the legacy of the suicide forest for most of my life, but I was no closer to understanding. Maybe, once you were committed to giving up on life, risk was nothing. I wondered if, once they got there, they were disappointed. Up close, the ridge was bare and exposed—not such a private place to die.

I could never settle on a single emotion when I thought about it.

I veered off the track and kept walking for another few hundred metres until I reached the bottle tree. Out of habit, I paused to listen.

The bottle tree was a large spreading gum, split through the middle, growing out in opposite directions. It wasn't marked on the map. When the wind blew from the west, the bottles played like panpipes, or like wailing ghosts, depending on what you believed. The bottles and notes were left behind, like the padlocks on bridges but secretive, furtive, and when the tree was too burdened they were posted into the cracks of the side of the mountain. Over fifty years of communication between the living and the dead—suicide notes, love notes, confessions—all crumbling to dust.

I wanted it to stop; I also felt a responsibility to preserve what was there. Sometimes I would read them and wonder how things might be different if the words inside were ever spoken.

The bottles weren't singing today. For a second, the first rays of sun broke through the canopy, and a taut strand of what I first thought was a spider's web glistened. It was knotted around the base of the tree and when I touched it, it didn't give. Fishing line. It led deeper into the trees, away from the ridge.

I followed, occasionally touching the line. It was stretched to breaking in places and hummed a faint vibration. I didn't wonder why the line was there, only what might be at the end. Sometimes they would use string or wool, sometimes ribbons tied in bows, or chalk marks on branches, or even stick-arrows on the path—all signs to mark the way back out, or to guide the stretcher in.

Looking the other way wasn't a crime, Ma would say. It wasn't that nobody cared, but what could you do? There was no changing a mind that far gone and it wasn't the business of strangers. The forest was public property—it couldn't be fenced off and guarded twenty-four-seven. The last town meeting had been over four years ago and again nothing had come of it; the last person they'd cut down had been almost a year ago.

The sweat went cold on my skin and my pulse surged all over, like hundreds of tiny heartbeats. Ahead, scratched into the wormy bark of a tree, a crude arrow pointed up. It was bleeding sap, still fresh. I didn't look straightaway; I focused on an army of inch ants trailing along a twisted vine and started counting under my breath. My shoes sank into the damp path as if the forest was trying to swallow me, feet first.