The Ink Bridge (18 page)

He's not a doctor!

Hec heard the microwave humming a familiar tune. His dad came back in. ‘He rang me, the doctor.'

Then why ask.

‘I have to pay for his time whether you talk to him or not. I have to pay. A lot by the way. Quite a lot.'

His dad riffled through the grey remains of his hair. ‘You have to snap out of this, Hec, it's doing you no good. I don't know what to do anymore.'

Hec got up slowly, dropping Shaboo to the floor. She landed on her side, disproving yet another myth. He went to his room, slammed the door and turned into a question mark on his ancient Wiggles doona. It wasn't long before the knock came.

‘Hec, you can't hide from me. From this.'

I can, I can, I can . . .

‘Hec, I called the school today. They said they'd take you back. They were pretty generous, considering what happened.'

Hec drew his pillow into his ears.

‘Or
. . .
I have another plan,' his dad continued, lips pressed to the door so his words came out flat. ‘I need to talk to you about it, but not like this. Come out, Hec.'

The door had no lock. It was a rule from before – no locks, no secrets. His dad could just come in. What stopped him? What invisible force held him on the other side? What stopped him crossing? After all, he was a bridge-builder.

‘This won't go away, Hec.'

He heard his dad back away from the door. Hard heels on the bare boards. And something inside Hec wanted to call him back, but he didn't give in. He waited until the house grew silent, or as silent as an old house can, with its moaning walls, the arthritic creak of its joists, the caw of its doors. Their mangy possum shat bullets over the roof, a mopoke called. And finally after the churning of his mind stopped, Hec fell into an exhausted sleep.

Morning rattled like a tram down the street. There was a note on the chalkboard.

Fed cat. Home early. Will talk.

Dad.

Hec poured a bowl of muesli and sat crunching it, spitting the raisins and chunks of pawpaw down to Shaboo who pushed them around with her claws.

There was a knock at the door. That was strange. No one came by these days. The knock came again, but Hec stayed seated, mouth open, mid crunch. He put his finger to his top lip to silence Shaboo.

The mail slot clattered open.

‘Hector, you in there?'

Hec caught a whiff of clove oil. His dentist used clove oil in her rinse water, said it dulled the pain.
Rinse and spit.
Strings of blood and amalgam on the stainless steel.
Rinse
and spit, it will help with the pain.

His English teacher was a big fan of clove oil too. She must have bathed in the stuff because in period six English, you could hardly smell the whiteboard markers and the grey tang of old books.
Rinse and spit.

‘Hector, I know you're in there. I talked with your dad and he said you might be open to returning to class.'

Hec crept to the door and looked at the mail slot. A slash of violent red, teeth smeared with lipstick.

‘Mr Jard didn't send me if that's what you're thinking, although he
did
tell me to let you know that you are required to attend school by law, he just said to remind you of that.'

Calypso's eyes appeared at the slot and Hec shrunk behind the jamb. ‘I saw you Hector, open up and we can talk. I feel like an idiot.'

You
are
an idiot.

‘I'm not leaving until you open the door, I want you back in my class, you belong there, you were so gooooood and that baobab essay you wrote in Year Nine it was extra-extraordinary and I mean it Hector, I do, I'm not just saying that because Mr Jard told me to; although, he did say to remind you of that and your Talent. He said Talent, Hec, Talent.'

Considering she was an English teacher, Calypso was a little shy of punctuation. She just kept trundling out the words until the class went comatose or the period ended. It was a fact you started life with so many breaths and when you reached that number, you died. Simple as that. Well maybe Calypso was jiggy with the theory and was planning a breathless charge.

‘You need to start writing again, Hec, it's important. Words are our chance at forever.'

Forever?

‘You have so much to say.' She sucked in a breath. ‘Oh, there you are, that's better now we can talk face-to-face, sort of, it would be even better if you just let me in, Hec. Don't you dare shut this flap, Hector Morrow, I am warning you as a teacher, now please don't shut this flap, Hec
. . .
'

With the flap shut, Calypso was just a clove-oil ghost. A whisper from another world that Hec had left behind, and gladly.

He went through to the lounge and flipped on
Play
School
. He took a guess at the arch window and jagged it as always. That happened a lot lately. It was as if by drawing away from the cluttered nation of words he had unlocked a part of his brain that just
knew
. He turned the sound down and provided his own commentary.

Today we are visiting a factory where they take your dreams
and crush them into something small. It starts when you are a
child and everything seems good but, sooner or later, all those
hopes are turned into something ugly. That is called recycling.
See the dull, angry people pushing the old dreams into boxes?
Look at their faces. Do they look happy? It looks dangerous
that machine, doesn't it? Look at the wheels and teeth. Whomp!
Whomp! Whomp! It is mashing up those dreams. And now it is
time to go home. Do they look happy? Look closely. They are
smiling. Are they happy or are they just pretending?

Hec turned the volume back up. He liked this presenter. Liked her soft voice hiking up to the end of the sentence. And best of all, when he was sick of her, there was always the off button.

Powderfinger was in the CD player. He turned it on and cranked it. So loud that pictures rattled on the walls. The one of him and Mum on the beach at St Kilda somewhere between the syringes and sea. Him all ice-creamed up. Him, face dusted with sand. Him, two-teeth-gone smile. Mum, sea goddess, a brittle star. Next track. Slowly the music built. Bernard Fanning's voice came off the tremble, the acoustic guitar climbed, drums and cymbals began a wall. The pier was smoky haze and beyond it, out of sight (but not mind) was the bridge. Never out of mind. Hec knew that control was slipping through his hands and that everything, everything, everything was not turning out like he had planned. He hid his face in his hands, but the music found him there.

Dad came home early as promised, with pizza. They ate straight from the box, long strings of mozzarella looping from their chins.

‘So, Hec, like I said last night, I need to talk to you about something. Something I have been giving a lot of thought to lately. Hec it's been nearly a year.'

Ten months four days. Not nearly a year. Not even close.
I get to decide how long it has been.

‘We don't have to forget, but we do need to move forward.'

We. You mean
me;
you're not talking about yourself. But
you're as stuck as I am, Dad. Admit it, will you! Just admit it.

‘One thing you need to do is go back to school.'

Hec dropped his pizza back in the box. The anchovies stung his tongue.

‘If not school, then something else. A job.' Dad took a swig of water. ‘Don't fight me on this one, Hec, it's nonnegotiable. You have to do something. It's not healthy to just do nothing. You will end up turning in on yourself and causing even more pain.'

I have turned in on myself, Dad, haven't you been paying
attention? It is just me and the pain. The pain and me.

‘You used to want to be a writer. That was important to you. I don't know if it is anymore, but maybe just maybe you can work towards that.'

He's getting me a job on a newspaper. He has contacts. It
wouldn't be the worst.

‘You are going to need to go back to school eventually, but I have talked to Mr Jard and he has agreed that for this year you can take the time to work and sort things out. There will be a place for you back at school when you're ready. It's a pretty generous offer, considering.'

Probably just start making coffees and emptying bins, but
eventually, maybe they'd get me to write. They'd see stuff that
I'd just left lying around, brilliant stuff, but casual. They'd
see it and realise,
Hey, this kid can write.
And then I'd get a
computer and some articles to research, maybe then a by-line,
but not too quickly so the older guys weren't jealous . . .

‘Work is good for you, Hec. And work can give you things to write about. Life experience, Hec. Nothing beats it.'

Life experience?

‘I know lots of people your age don't want to do certain jobs. I don't know, maybe they think it's beneath them. But it's character building.'

Character building?

‘All I'm saying is, give it a go. You need to do something.' He looked at Hec sideways, folding his pizza into a sandwich. ‘It will be good for you.'

Well what is it? The newspaper. It has to be. Something
good has to happen. It can't be this shit forever.

‘My friend Merrick Hope. Well he's an old school mate actually; haven't seen him in years, but I bumped into him a couple of weeks back and he said he was one short at work.'

Merrick, what kind of name is that?

‘Look it's a start, that's all I'm saying. It's not forever and it will give you something to do and somewhere to go. We all need something to do. We might say we hate work but we all
need
it.'

Cut to it, Dad.

‘Okay. I guess you want to know what it is. The job, I mean.'

Are you sure you don't want to go to an ad break just to
up the suspense a little?

‘Merrick
. . .
well
. . .
he runs a business that makes candles.'

Hec peered out from the bars of his fingers.
He's a hippie,
isn't he? Kaftan, headband, clove oil, patchouli – it will be
like period six English all day.

‘It's a factory. A candle factory. They make candles there. You know, wicks, wax, that sort of thing. I mean I haven't actually been there, but Merrick's a good guy. Well he was in Grade Six and I can't imagine too much has changed.'

Grade Six, Dad. A factory? What are you thinking?

It was not easy to get to the bridge at night, without a car. Hec knew where he was going though and he was determined. The bus ran from the city through West Melbourne and down to the industrial estate. It would ferry workers at the start and end of long shifts. It turned at the end of Lorimer Street where the West Gate Bridge hung like a concrete bird over the sky.