Max (13 page)

‘Didn't give a name. Seemed to know you. Difficult to tell how old he really was. Down on his luck, I'd say. No teeth and a dirty tracksuit. D'you know him?'

Max nodded and unfolded the paper. It was written on one page in one continuous paragraph. ‘Didn't know he could write,' thought Max.

Max,

I guess if you are reading this note you must be OK. I am glad you are alright. I must tell you that I am going and that we will not see each other again. I told you the story about the person who saves another person, they must take responsibility for the one they have saved. For the rest of their life. We are connected but I cannot take on that heavy load. I know that it should not be a load, but it is for me. (See Max... you thought I was perfect.) You wouldn't want me to carry you and you don't need it. Never mind, memories are enough. Like the memory of your dead friend. So goodbye, my young friend, and try to stay away from the life-threatening situations. They kill you in the end no matter who is keeping an eye out for you. And you know what I told you about crows. They knew something was up – something bad. Crows – they know things.
Goodbye and good luck,
Nikolai

Max thumped the side of his cabinet. ‘Doesn't anybody stick around?'

M
AX LOOKED OUT THE BUS WINDOW, sending a sad smile to his father, Woody and Mai. It was late morning and buses were lined up. In a cloud of blue fumes his bus roared into life and turned into the traffic, heading for the northern freeway, leaving the three of them waving on the footpath.

He stared vacantly down on the cars and motorbikes streaming past below his window. Traffic and roads and dirty smoke – they didn't interest him. It had been one of the big differences between Max and Lou. Lou had liked motorbikes, factories, chimneys. An urban artist at heart.

‘Just can't get him out of my mind. If only it would let up for a bit. Let me off the hook. Get this cattle prod off my back.' Max fingered the pages of Lou's writing, resting in his lap. ‘For once I'd like to have a chest that feels light – to get rid of this metal band. Everybody thinks I'm driving them nuts. They should try being in my head for a while, then they'd know what nuts is!'

‘I beg your pardon?'

A voice jolted him out of his reflection. A middle-aged woman sat next to him, dressed the way people that age dress for travel. Neat and comfortable but not so casual as to appear informal.

‘I thought you said something?' she asked again.

Max blinked at her, searching for words. He wasn't sure what thoughts had slipped out of his mouth.

‘Probably just dreaming. I'm pretty tired.'

‘Well, there'll be plenty of time for sleeping on this trip. Where are you going?'

‘Brown's Beach. I get off at Venice and then my mum picks me up.'

‘Oh, you're going to see your mother. How nice. I'm off to see my son. Him and his wife just broke up. Thought I'd go and cook him a few meals. They live up in Bairnsdale – well, she doesn't live there any more. Took the kids and left. Not sure where. I don't want to be bitter but it's hard when your own children are involved. You'll know that one day, when you have kids.' She opened a flask and poured herself a cup of milk coffee. ‘Want some?'

‘Sure. Thanks.'

‘I know you're not supposed to drink on the bus but' – she peeked over the seats at the driver and his rear vision mirror – ‘it's a stupid rule and I'm too old to put up with stupid rules!' She smiled at Max, giving him a gentle nudge in the side.

His travelling companion was warm and chatty. She meant no harm. But Max wondered if she'd talk for the whole five hours to Bairnsdale. He'd once been stuck with a truckie, travelling up the coast to collect his prime mover from the repair shop. He'd trapped Max for hours, regaling him with truck-driving stories and showing him photos of trucks and a stream of accidents. He had hundreds of them.

‘I forget,' said Max. ‘How far is it to Venice?'

‘Seven hours. Venice. Now there's a pretty name.' The woman turned to Max, suddenly becoming quite animated. ‘Italians settled there after the war. Australia's got so many interesting names – Italians, Aboriginal or just plain funny. Have you ever heard of Mad Dog Creek? I just love those names. I do! I suppose you think I'm silly, prattling on like this? Look at you. Your eyes are drooping. You must be so tired. I'd better stop.'

‘It's OK,' Max said out of some polite habit.

‘No, no,' the woman said, patting him on the leg. ‘You get some sleep.'

He let his head fall back, feeling the vibrations of the bus engines. As he slipped into a deep sleep, he heard his travelling companion murmur to herself, ‘Venice, Mad Dog, Clematis. How lovely...'

Max was lost in the bush. He was starving hungry and wandering around in circles, searching for food. A large blackbird flew among the trees and finally landed on a branch near him, cocking its head to one side. It flew off again and returned, dropping a morsel of food at Max's feet, which he grabbed and gobbled up. The bird went to fly off again but Max called after it saying, ‘Don't leave me, don't leave me. Where will I find food? How will I survive?' The bird wheeled and then flew past him and off into the sky. But at the last moment Max saw its face. They were Nick's eyes and the bird was grinning.

Max woke with a jolt. Warm early afternoon sun made him feel hot and sticky. He could do without dreams like that. He blinked his eyes and yawned, lazily gazing out at the flash of trees and white lines.

‘Well, haven't you had a lovely long sleep? We're nearly at Bairnsdale.'

Max sat up. ‘Where are we?' He felt like a man who had been shanghaied and found himself on a tramp steamer, somewhere in the middle of the ocean.

‘Fifteen minutes from Bairnsdale. You've been asleep for hours. At least you didn't have to listen to my prattle.'

‘I'm sorry,' he said.

‘Good heavens, no need for that. Caught up on my reading.'

‘What are you reading?'

She shyly showed Max the cover. ‘A shoulder to lean on. It's pretty trashy – but I enjoy them.' She looked down at the book in her lap. ‘Keeps me company, I suppose.' As the bus rolled into a service station carpark, they said their goodbyes. ‘Hope you enjoy the visit with your mother. Weather shouldn't be too bad. Nice to meet you.'

The last Max saw of her was her back disappearing into a rusted-out Kingswood, her son dumping her luggage into the boot. He only caught a glimpse of the son – unshaven and crumpled, a look of bewilderment and exhaustion on his face. Probably in need of his mother's cooking.

‘Mother's cooking...' Max wondered if he was in for a never-ending line of old hippie dishes: lentil soup, tofu cacciatore, soy burgers. He laughed to himself and spread out, rested his forehead on the window glass, watching Bairnsdale pass from sight. Somewhere a grown man cried in his mother's arms in a kitchen that was used to warmth and perhaps would be warm once again.

‘She wasn't a bad old stick,' thought Max. ‘Helping her son out like that. And those names, didn't she love them?' The bus passed the sign saying, ‘Thanks for visiting Bairnsdale'.

‘Bairnsdale' – what kind of a name was that? And what did ‘bairn' mean, at any rate? Didn't it mean ‘baby'? And ‘dale'? – wasn't that a small green valley?

What a picture, thought Max! Bairnsdale – a small green valley full of chortling little babies. Now, Dave would like that. Sometimes he went on a bit about helping women give birth but his job seemed to give him real joy. Dave reckoned it kept him in touch with life's mysteries. Babies and birth and all that. Was that reason enough to keep going? Max wondered.

The brakes of the bus let out a wheeze. And there was his mother. Meg – dark hair pulled back, going a touch grey, with wisps hanging untidily down her face. Big straw sun hat, pants, boots, flannel shirt and a hippie vest covered with rainbows, tarot signs and a couple of embroidered names, including his and Woody's. Like she still carried them around.

‘Oh, Maxie. How wonderful to see you, to have you here!' She embraced her eldest as though she could still feel him in her womb.

People cry in their mothers' arms. That's a fact. And Max, on this occasion, was no exception. ‘Oh, Mum. Oh, Jesus, I'm sorry. I think I stuffed up a bit,' and he wept into his mother's jacket.

She held him close to her breast. ‘It's OK, it's OK, Max. Lots of us stuff up. Your father and I have stuffed up a few times too. Come on, I'll take you home – get some old hippie tucker into you.' She laughed. ‘I know how much you love it!'

Meg's ute followed the winding road home. An abandoned wooden trestle railway bridge ran next to the road until it disappeared into a line of trees. Blackened fingers of burnt gums pointed to the pale blue skies strewn with plumes of white cloud. Clumps of lime-green foliage wrapped themselves around branches, reminding Max of the arm-length gloves worn in summer months by the Vietnamese women in Wellington Street. Reminding him of Mai.

Hurtling gullies of ferns and trees ran off to the left, full of mist billowing between hills and black-topped mountains. Trees on either side of the road leant towards each other, forming a tunnel of gathering gloom until at last they emerged from the forest and daylight revealed the seaside country town of Brown's Beach.

The broad inlet stretched out in every direction, enjoying a full tide and plenty of fish. Currents roamed lazily around its shores and tides lapped on hidden pebbly beaches. Mountain ranges lay to the north, while in the east sandy coastal dunes hid large freshwater lakes. Small creeks ran into the bush, petering out in dark, brackish waterholes. A sea eagle perched high in the branches of a native oak, looking for a meal of trevally to fill its belly.

As they approached the town, Meg crunched back down through the gears. ‘Not a lot of work here, Max. I hang on to both of my jobs. I like them actually. And I'd rather work. But they gave me a week off while you're here. Sometimes small town bosses can be like that.'

Meg shot a quick look at her son.

‘Y'know Max, this... these things you've been getting up to. Dave's told me all about it but I have to say, it's worried me sick. Should I be?'

Max shifted in his seat and stared straight ahead.

‘Well?' his mother asked.

‘Please Mum... don't go on about it. I just got here!'

It was five o'clock when they pulled up. Finches with red helmets and beaks hopped in and out of grevillea bushes in the frontyard, looking like little gossips.

Meg's house was a weathered cedar kit home with steep roofs and piles of wood stacked on the verandah. It was small, with just one bedroom for Meg and an attic bedroom above the lounge for Max and Woody whenever they happened to visit. On cold nights the heat from the potbelly stove would rise, making the boys feel snug.

‘I've got a surprise for you,' Meg said. ‘I've cooked roast chicken and done the potatoes the way you like them – well, the way you used to like them.'