The Best Australian Stories 2014 (6 page)

She tells you she has been trialling a radical kind of neurosurgery on sheep: a tiny part of the animal's brain that appears active during specific activities – eating and so on – can be isolated and removed. The sheep's correlating memory sketch, meanwhile, seems to change once the operation is performed. It boils down to this: a particular, problematic memory might be able to be amputated from a person.

But the research is extremely limited in its application, since they cannot know what the sheep is feeling at the time of the excision, nor make an adequate interpretation of its memory sketch. It won't go any further, she tells you, without research on humans, which at this stage involves far too many risks.

You ask for her business card.

*

You are forty years old, tied to nothing, and numb. The decision is not hard. You have nothing to lose.

There is a lot of paperwork to sign, of course. The world is now more litigious than ever. Courts have begun to award monetary compensation for personal hurt, and people have been claiming distress for bruised fruit and bad haircuts.

Dr Ostrovsky and her team interview you at length about your personal history, and you spend many afternoons having nodes attached to your head while being made to feel a range of emotions, from horror to joy. During this time they map a tiny area of your brain that seems to become overactive when you feel sad. The same memory sketch appears each time this part of your brain activates: it's a face, but you have no idea who it is.

*

You are emerging from an anaesthetic. A team of surgeons stand above you, with Dr Ostrovsky by your side. Her face is not right. They found what they were looking for, she says. Buried deep within the folds of your amygdala, under a dream about a cave bearing ancient pinch pots, in the middle of a garden set at the end of a path where a window looks out onto a sandpit set in rough seas, there is a single memory pressing against your basolateral complex: it's the little girl bearing the message she divined from your father.

They excised the memory, but it turns out sheep are altogether different from humans. In humans, Dr Ostrovsky tells you, memories are symbiotic; they depend on one another. They got the memory they were after, but that memory was holding up another one, and so on, and by removing it they have caused your glial cells, the ones that provide structure, to collapse like a stack of dominoes. They have, unwittingly, undone you.

You are altered, though you can't say how. The people around you are looking at each other, and you recognise panic in their movements. Dr Ostrovsky is saying something. She is saying ‘sorry'. You can see her lips move but you have forgotten sound. She is saying sorry over and over again, and you know you should feel sad or angry or scared, but you feel like laughing. You try to remember your father's voice, your mother's hands. It is like trying to hold water. You feel only pleasure as you let them go.

Meanjin

Mrs Sunshine

Edwina Shaw

The stink of hot dead animal blows up from the creek. The grown-ups all complain, but I don't mind much because the mud's great fun to play in, like quicksand from a Tarzan movie. We chuck all sorts of stuff in to see how fast the mud can swallow it. After the flood, when swirling grey water came up to the verandah and a dead cow floated past, we found a whole box of Hawaiian records washed up in the yard. The ones that still played we gave to Gran; the rest we threw into the mud and watched as they sank under. Sometimes we go mud-walking and before you know it, the mud is over your shorts like a giant's slobbery mouth sucking hard on your legs, making fart noises. You've got to be careful and hang on to the mangrove branches or you could get pulled right under and die.

Paper hats droop and stick to our foreheads with sweat as we sit on the verandah eating Christmas lunch. On the telly some old guy is singing carols about snow, but it's hard to hear the words over the screeching of fruit bats in the mangroves. The grown-ups' table is set all fancy with matching knives and forks, the best dishes and even serviettes. You can hardly see the decorated cloth there's so much food: cold chook, prawns, a big ugly ham and lots of tomato and lettuce. Gran did it all. Mum hasn't been doing much today, apart from sitting in her chair staring at nothing. Sometimes it's like she stares right through me, like she has X-ray vision, or I'm invisible. Like she's thinking about something – and it's not me. Maybe she's thinking about that ticket.

Aunty Julie and Uncle Dave and their lot are here as well. Their kids are little, like my baby sister Louise, so the kiddy table is already covered in mush and dribble. I squint into the glare, down the backyard to the creek. I can't wait to go fishing. Max, my big brother, got a new fishing rod from Santa. I got a guitar, an almost real one. Louise was the most excited though; she couldn't stop squealing when she found the Sunshine Family dolls in the sack at the end of her bed – a set of three, a mum and a dad and a baby too. They're from some sad movie about a mother who dies, stupid really. But Louise loves them so much she's even playing with them while we're eating.

Everyone on the verandah gobbles and laughs, talking louder and louder over each other and the music and the noise of the bats. Except Mum, whose mouth is clamped tight. She doesn't look happy like you should at Christmas. She's staring at her plate like she's trying to figure out exactly what a prawn is.

Gran forces a chicken leg onto my plate even though I've told her a million times I hate chicken. She's got a bit of everything on hers and is pecking at the food with her knife and fork like a magpie fussing with a bug, false teeth clacking with every bite. Because Mum is working now, Gran's been coming over every day, not only on Sundays like before. Mum gets home really late, and lots of nights she doesn't get back from the office till after we've gone to bed. It used to be more fun when she was here all the time, but maybe she has to work late to buy more tickets. Still, I wish she wouldn't work so much. When she's away, Dad lets Louise get away with murder just because she's the baby.

Like now, playing with her dolls at the table when I'm not allowed to have my guitar. She's not even playing with them right. Instead of Mr Sunshine cuddling up to Mrs Sunshine, she's got my GI Joe.
My
GI Joe. I never said she could.

‘Hey! Who said you could play with Joe?'

She ignores me and turns so I can't see what she's doing. I give her a poke.

‘Daddy! Mikey's hitting me!'

‘She's got my man and she doesn't even need him. She's got a man doll of her own now.' I reach around and grab GI Joe. ‘She'll break him.'

‘Michael!' roars Dad. ‘Stop that rot this instant or you won't see your guitar for a week.'

‘She's the one who took him!'

But Louise has started her fake-crying act, and Dad always takes her side so I have to give Joe back even though he's mine.

‘Why don't you play with Mr Sunshine, you sook?' I scowl at Lou.

‘Mr Sunshine is boring. I like GI Joe better, he's got a scratchy beard,' she says with a sulk in her voice.

Mum starts laughing, a strange sort of cartoon laugh, like that crazy dog, Muttley, in the
Whacky Races,
and it's so freaky that Louise stops her moaning and stares at Mum. We all do. It doesn't sound like her normal laugh at all. She goes on and on like she's about to bust a gut. Maybe she's saved up every laugh she's missed out on lately. She tries to say something like ‘Oh, those kids,' but it doesn't come out right because she's spluttering chewed-up chicken and salad onto the table.

‘Fiona,' says Dad, like she's one of us kids about to get into trouble. He's going redder. I suppose he's embarrassed. It
is
embarrassing. Grandma and Uncle Dave and Aunty Julie have stopped chewing and are looking at Mum like she's some kind of loony.

Mum covers her mouth with her hand and chuckles into it, like something really funny has happened. Maybe there was some grown-up joke I didn't get. None of the other grown-ups are smiling though.

‘Stop it, Mum,' I say. ‘Your head will fall off.'

Then everyone starts laughing too, normal laughs. Mum stops with a sigh and wipes her eyes with a serviette.

‘Must be time for pudding, hey Gran?' she says, as if nothing weird has happened.

‘What was so funny? We'd all like to be in on the joke,' asks Dad. He crosses his arms hard across his chest and rocks back on his chair, glaring at Mum as if he's about to yell at her like he does sometimes when there aren't other grown-ups around.

Mum looks the other way, as if she didn't even hear what he said. I hate it when she does that. Sometimes she can make you feel as if you're not even a person, like you're a prawn maybe.

*

Mostly Mum's really nice. I love it when she lies down in my bed at night and puts her arm under my neck. We talk for ages, about music and the stars on TV, like whether the Six Million Dollar man could really run faster than our car, about Disneyland, and how far the moon is, and how great it would be to go there, about everything really.

Lately, she's been coming in to say goodnight when she gets home from work but she smells different, a bit like Dad's aftershave but more like pepper; it makes me sneeze. Sometimes she falls asleep next to me. The other night I woke in the dark and she was still there. My neck was getting a crick in it, but before I could wriggle out from her arms I heard a noise. Like she was crying. But mums don't cry. I stayed still and listened so hard I thought my ears would pop. Quiet sort of snuffling, but definitely crying. I thought maybe she was thinking about something really sad, like when our dog died.

I coughed, so she knew I was awake, and said, ‘Don't cry, Mum. Blacky's in heaven now. Don't be sad.'

She sniffed so strongly I heard snot going down her throat. ‘Go back to sleep, Mikey. You're right, Blacky's in heaven. Mummy's tired, that's all. I won't cry anymore.'

I did go back to sleep, but not for a long time. Not till after I heard her whisper to herself, ‘After Christmas. Just give the kids their Christmas.'

It didn't make any sense.

She cries other times too, not only when she fights with Dad. Most mornings her eyes look red and sore, though if I ask her what's wrong, she gets grouchy. Dad says he's sorry and tries to make her happy. He bought her a great Christmas present, a box full of perfume and soap with a picture of a dancing Spanish lady on the lid. She opened it this morning, but put it to one side with half the wrapping still on, and didn't even give him a thank-you kiss like you're supposed to.

*

Gran brings out the Christmas pudding. I hate all the sultanas and orange peel, but I take a big piece anyway because she always hides money in it. I cover the pudding with ice-cream and mush it all together so it looks as if I'm eating some while I search. Everyone's quiet after Mum's freaky laughing attack. The only sound is the stupid singing on the telly and spoons scratching up the last bits of soggy stuff from the bottom of bowls.

Mum says, ‘Good pudding this year. I'm full as a goog,' and pats her tummy. She gets up from the table and half-smiles. ‘Now, if you don't mind, I'll go and have a little lie-down.'

Dad grunts.

‘You do that, dear,' says Gran. ‘You're looking tired.'

Mum goes to her room and closes the door.

*

The noise starts up again. Louise whines about me and Max kicking her, and the baby cousins run around screaming, because that's what they do. The grown-ups lean forward over their empty pudding plates and whisper together. About Mum. About Mum and some guy called Roger. I've heard his name before. I wonder if he has a beard.

‘What are you saying?' I ask. ‘What are you talking about Mum for? Don't you know it's rude to talk behind people's backs?' That's what my teacher says.

‘Don't worry about it, Mikey. It's adult talk. You kids go play now,' says Dad. ‘Take the little ones down the jetty. Try out that new fishing rod.'

Gran scoops a pile of meat scraps into a plastic bag to use as bait. ‘Mind those littlies near the water, Max. You too, Mikey,' she calls after us.

‘Yeah, yeah,' says Max out loud, then whispers to me, ‘How come we always have to look after the babies?'

Luckily, not long after we cast in the line, the cousins get bored and go up to the house. Louise sits quietly next to us on the jetty playing with Mrs Sunshine and she's not too annoying so we let her stay.

When I think Louise isn't listening, I ask Max, ‘Do you think Mum was laughing like that because of the ticket?'

‘What ticket?'

‘Remember, I told you. The airplane ticket I found in that suitcase when I was looking for presents.' It was hidden behind the broom cupboard in the laundry. It was a new suitcase, blue with red edges, full of Mum's clothes. There were some dresses and nighties I'd never seen before, soft and silky like Mrs Sunshine's bride-gown and an old photo of us kids when we were little. Right on top was a shiny ticket with a colour picture of a plane on it. Probably to Disneyland. I packed it back exactly the way I found it and raced to tell Max, but he didn't seem as excited as me. I suppose there is only one ticket and it's my birthday coming up, so it's probably for me, and he's jealous.

‘Do you reckon that's it?' I ask. ‘You know, why she was laughing? Cause she's going to take us to Disneyland and it's the best surprise ever?'

Max looks at me as if I'm some kind of idiot. He goes to say something then changes his mind and says, ‘Wouldn't it be cool to have a cigarette now, sitting here fishing, smoking a Marlboro, like in that ad?'

‘Yeah,' I say and stretch out on the wonky boards of the jetty, dreaming about meeting Mickey Mouse and going on all those fantastic rides.

Then Max leaps up shouting, ‘Fish! Fish!' He starts reeling in the line but he's so excited he stumbles and trips over my legs. He falls onto Lou. The jetty tips up on its barrels and SPLASH! We're all in the muddy water. It's not deep and Max and I both know how to swim, but Lou is screaming her head off, flailing as if she's about to drown. Max doesn't help her – he's busy hanging on to his rod trying to bring in the fish.

‘I've got it! I've got it!' he yells, scrambling in the mud up the bank, reeling frantically.

I grab Louise by the arm and tug her in, until we're both sloshing in black goo, getting sucked down. She panics and thrashes, making us sink deeper. And deeper.

‘Mrs Sunshine!' she shouts. ‘Where's Mrs Sunshine?'

‘It's only a stupid doll,' I yell. ‘Stop hitting me! I'll find her as soon as I get you out.'

I lug her by the back of her dress and pull her through the stinking mud onto the grass.

Max stands and winds the reel like a madman. ‘See it? There he is. It's a whopper, mate! Check it out!'

As soon as I've hauled my legs free of the mud, I turn and see a flash of white fish-belly skimming through the ripples. It isn't exactly what I'd call a whopper, but it's pretty big all right. ‘Unreal! Keep going, Max, you've almost got it. He's coming, he's coming.'

‘Wah!' cries Louise, being a baby as usual. Can't she see we're busy doing important men's business with the fish? ‘Mrs Sunshine. She's being sucked under!'

Bugger. I follow Lou's pointed finger and spot Mrs Sunshine's hair glinting in the sun, fanned out on the oily surface of the mud.

‘I see her. I'll get her in a minute. I gotta help Max first.'

‘I've got him, mate. I've got him – you go get the doll. I'll be right.' Max pants as he skips the fish the last few feet, its ugly catfish face snarling at us.

I jump back in and heave my legs through, just as Mrs Sunshine's head goes under. I fumble in the mud and pull her out, completely covered in grunge. She's pretty slippery but I hold her tight around the waist and lift her up. I'm like a hero but no one is clapping.

Max calls out and hoists a foot-long catfish out of the water, dangling at the end of his line. He's grinning like he's caught a man-eating shark.

‘Here,' I say, and hand Lou the doll. ‘Though I don't reckon you can call her Mrs Sunshine anymore.' Max and I crack up but Lou doesn't think it's funny. She starts crying again and runs up the hill to the house, clutching the sludge-covered doll to her chest.

I try to feel sad for her; I mean, it's pretty rough to have your present ruined right on Christmas, but really I don't care much. I'm too excited about Max's fish. I wish I'd caught it.

We sit on the bank in our grotty clothes watching the fish thrash and twitch.

‘Let's go show Dad,' says Max.

‘And Mum. Maybe she'll cook it for dinner.'