Incurable

CHAPTER 17

Two weeks later we were in the city. It’s one of life’s miracles … well actually, there are two miracles and they’re closely connected. One is that you can move so quickly from environment to environment. One minute you’re in the Sahara Desert; twelve hours later, with the help of a few helicopters or planes or something, you can be waist deep in snow in Alaska or strolling down the streets of Paris. Well, I think that’s how it works anyway. Not having travelled further than New Zealand in my young life, I wouldn’t know.

The second miracle is that you can adjust to it, cope with it. You’d think that the shock of the upheaval would be so overwhelming that you’d need to be put in bubble wrap for six months and fed through a tube. But no, the good old human organism is so resilient that it can bounce around from place to place with only a thirty-second adjustment. Most of the time anyway.

Actually, when I think some more about it, as I have done for about three hours since writing the last bit, I realise it’s not that simple. You make the immediate practical adjustment, you don’t wither up and die, you get on with it, but there are slow, long-term shifts needed, adjustments that happen at a much deeper level, and which maybe sometimes never happen. I guess this would be very unhealthy for the average human organism.

Anyway, how we got to the city is that after the dreadful, terrible time on the cliff, after we dragged ourselves home, after we drank a lot of hot sweet tea, after we huddled under a doona watching mindless television, after all that, at about nine o’clock, Gavin started to talk.

And oh boy, once he started, he wouldn’t shut up.

I’ve always liked Gavin’s voice. It’s low and husky, and he pronounces some words, most words, slightly differently. Often he seems to clip off the ends or twist them slightly, which makes them kind of exotic. He talks quite a lot to me, although it took a long long time before we got to that kind of relationship. Like I said before, he only talks to people he trusts, which is probably quite sensible. So people who meet him for the first time, or who don’t know him very well, assume he’s the strong silent type. Strong, yes; silent, depends who he’s with.

For the first time he told me his own stories. I remember writing quite recently about how stories give you an identity. In some ways they give you your life. You think you’re a big lump of skin and bones and blood and organs and cells, and of course you are, but you’re also a big lump of stories. You know those pictures they have in butchers’ shops showing how sheep and cattle are divided into rump and blade and so on? They should have another one, in bedrooms maybe, showing humans divided into the stories of their early childhood, the stories of their primary school days, the stories of their birthdays and Christmases, the stories of their friendships, and so on.

If you know someone’s stories, you know them. If you don’t know their stories, you don’t know them.

I hadn’t really known any of Gavin’s stories. In the early days he’d told us how he’d lived with his mum and his little sister, and that his dad had been killed in an explosion at a factory. I think Gavin was only about three at the time. I always figured that this was why he attached himself so strongly to Homer and Lee, because they were like fathers to him. Bit young for it, but still.

Now he told me story after story, filling out the details of his life, so that I started to know him in a new way. I want to write it down, because like I said at the very beginning of this whole thing, when I sat by the creek in Hell with a pen and a bit of paper, writing stuff down is a way of recording it, but more importantly, making it important, giving it meaning, except most of the time I don’t know what the meaning is. I just know that putting stuff on paper makes it solid somehow.

Gavin talked randomly and he told his stories in no particular order, but I think the general outline goes something like this: his dad was a boilermaker. I had to get him to write that down before I could work out what the word was, and as both of us were stiff and sore and tired and a bit dead mentally and physically it was quite a pain to have to go get pencil and paper, and then another pain to go get the dictionary. The dictionary said a boilermaker was someone who makes boilers. I don’t know how many boilers the world needs, but probably quite a lot.

He worked either for the Army, or in a factory that supplied the Army. Gavin wanted to think that he was in the Army, but Gavin was Army mad, so he was a bit biased. I just couldn’t imagine that the Army would have its own boilermakers, but maybe they do.

Anyway, the explosion killed four people. When Gavin tells a story he doesn’t just tell it, he acts it. Even though he was so wrecked, he couldn’t help himself. I wasn’t very comfortable under the doona with his arms and legs flying in different directions though, so I cut the description a bit short.

He seemed amazed that I hadn’t heard of the accident, but I couldn’t remember anything. It was years ago, it was hundreds of k’s from Wirrawee, and since then we’d had a full-scale war. Of course to Gavin it was the most important event of his life, but I would have been a little kid myself, with no interest in newspaper headlines or the evening news.

I couldn’t quite figure out what sort of work his mum had done. He said she was an entertainer. At first I thought he was saying trainer but when I figured entertainer I immediately thought she might be a singer with five platinum records. But when I asked him what kind of entertaining he changed and said she wasn’t an entertainer, just someone who looked after customers for a business in Marlon. Marlon’s a pretty grotty area if you ask me, but Gavin’s family lived in Mount Savage, which isn’t any better… it matches its name.

After his dad died there was one of those epidemics of death that seem to happen to some people, including me, except that I’m talking about non-war stuff, where a whole string of people die in quick succession. For Gavin it was two grandparents and his aunt and his rabbit. He didn’t know what his grandparents died of: ‘They were sick,’ he said and shrugged. But his aunt committed suicide. He was more interested in talking about his rabbit. ‘Did he commit suicide too?’ I asked, which was totally tasteless and unfunny except that he didn’t notice me say it. I rather liked the idea of a rabbit locking itself in the bathroom and taking an overdose. He said he was really upset about his rabbit, and I believe it, but it made me wonder some more about the cat he had massacred. We still hadn’t talked about the cat. It was too big a topic.

The rabbit’s name was Rick. Rick the rabbit. My first reaction to any rabbit is to shoot it, so I’m not into giving them names. If we started giving names to our rabbits we’d have to employ someone to do it. Rick didn’t seem much of a name to me but again Gavin didn’t know how he got it. ‘My sister called it that,’ he said.

Gavin acted out the death of Rick, again with more energy than I could muster. I got the impression that Rick had eaten something wrong and died of stomach problems. It did occur to me, watching Gavin and listening to his stories, that there were gaps in him, and they were the gaps in his family… I don’t know what the word is, mythology maybe? Just as each person is a big pile of accumulated stories, each family, and for that matter I suppose each culture, is the same. Maybe that’s one of the problems for Aboriginal people, maybe so many of them were murdered that a lot of stories were lost and now there are too many gaps. Gavin seemed like he didn’t have enough stories. I don’t know how many stories each person should have but if you don’t have enough, if you have blank spots instead of stories for part of your life, then that would be a pretty serious thing I think.

Gavin didn’t know how his grandparents had died, didn’t know what kind of work his mother did, didn’t know how Rick got his name, didn’t know why his aunt committed suicide… I asked him how his parents met and he didn’t know that either.

It soon became obvious that another bloke had moved in about a year before the war. His name was Ken. I’d never heard about this guy before. Gavin mentioned him once, accidentally, then again a few moments later, and looked mad at himself each time. Ken had done up a bike for Gavin and Ken had taken them to the beach for a weekend. Who was Ken?

‘Just a man who lived with us.’

‘Where was he from?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Were he and your mum like, thinking of getting married?’

‘I don’t know. He was stupid.’

‘You didn’t like him?’

‘No.’

Gavin was starting to clam up. I didn’t want that so I got off the subject of Ken. But it seemed like I was too late. Gavin had again turned into the stubborn self-contained little ball of silent grimness that I knew so well. After about ten minutes of saying nothing he got up and padded off down the hall towards his bedroom. I assumed that was it for the evening and he had shut down. Gavin has left the building. But to my surprise he came back a few minutes later, carrying something.

It was quite dark by then. I turned a light on, so he could see my mouth.

I recognised the envelope when I saw it. My mum wrote to the Red Cross after the war when we had been trying to find Gavin’s mum and little sister. She wrote in Gavin’s name, seeing it was his family. The answer, when it came, was pretty blunt. A couple of sentences describing what the Red Cross had been doing and where they’d gone for information, and then came the punchline. It was like a punch all right. We’re extremely sorry to tell you that our enquiries suggest that your mother, Mrs Fisher, was murdered in the firstfew hours of the war and no trace has been found of your sister, Rosie. Given the child’s age and the chaotic and extremely dangerous situation at the time we are not optimistic about finding her…

Now Gavin seemed to think it was very important that I read the letter again. I couldn’t work out why but I got it out of the envelope and opened it. And realised almost straight away that it was a different letter. I glanced at the date. This one had come quite recently, about a month ago. Funny, Gavin had never mentioned it to me.

I read it and my skin got that crawling prickling feeling I’ve had only a few times, for example when I’m looking at a large black automatic weapon that’s pointing straight at me or staring down a cliff and seeing Gavin about to fall to his death. God, what was it about Gavin? Would I ever understand him? Did he have serious mental problems? We are delighted to inform you that despite our fears for the safety of your sister and our doubts about finding her, we have been successful in locating her. As you know, we rely upon people registeringfound children with us, but for various reasons many people do not do this. However, a letter received in this office recently started us on a new search for Rosie, and enquiries have established that she appears to be living at 87 Green Street, Marlon, with a family named Russell. It appears that Rosie knew this family before the war, and they have been caring for her since they found her in a prison camp in the first few days of the war. You would probably be aware that many unofficial living situations have developed as a result of the war, and many of these are not yet sanctioned or even recorded. We have referred Rosie’s case to the Department of Child Relocation, but they have a large workload, and it may be some time before they can address her situation. In the meantime, it was our impression that Rosie was as happy as could be expected, and that the Russells are taking good care of her. Rosie was delighted to learn that you had survived the war, and she is looking forward to a reunion with you. Privacy legislation prevents us givingyour contact details to the Russells but they have consented to your being informed of their address and telephone number.

I knew that if I let my face show my feelings, I would sit there gazing at Gavin like he was an alien or something out of a freak show so I tried not to frighten him off, but instead to look as though it was the most normal thing in the world for you to be uninterested when your missing sister is found after a year or so. He was watching my face pretty carefully though, and I’m not sure whether he was fooled.

So I said to him, ‘Do you want to go see her?’ When he hesitated I decided I needed to be more positive, and hopefully that might transmit a little energy to him, so I changed it to, This is fantastic. Let’s go see her this weekend.’

Well, he didn’t say no. That’s about all you can say for him. And that’s why we were in the city, staying at Lee’s and set for a reunion that I figured probably wasn’t going to be as emotional as the ones on TV or in magazines. I even thought of going to the place myself first, to suss out what was happening, to set it up, but then thought that would be too sneaky, and not fair on Gavin.

Life at Lee’s was pretty chaotic. What am I talking about, pretty? It was chaotic, and it wasn’t pretty. I don’t know how he put up with it, considering how precise and controlled he is about everything. I mean, the guy’s a piano player, not a guitarist. He’d rather do chemistry than drama, rather play chess than Bullshit or Spoons, rather swim laps than run around the edge of the pool chucking people in and doing bombs. And here he is living in the middle of Lord of the Flies.

He was embarrassed about it, and kept giving me guilty little looks, as if to say sorry, and a couple of times he did actually say, ‘Sorry about the mess,’ ‘Sorry about the noise,’ ‘Sorry about the way they’re carrying on.’ But he didn’t seem very good at looking after the kids. Besides Pang there was Phillip, who was nine, Paul, who was seven, and Intira, who was four. Between them they could put together quite a party. Lee’s method was to ignore them, then suddenly chuck a tantrum and rant and rave at them and hand out rules and punishments, which shut them up for a short time before the whole thing started again. I could see that he was going crazy with the strain of it, and I didn’t blame him.

They only had a tiny apartment, which was all he could afford, seeing how most of his money was coming from government allowances.

The little guys accepted Gavin really well, especially Intira, the four year old, who immediately adopted him. It was pretty funny watching the effect on Gavin. At first he was uncomfortable and off balance, but she quickly softened him up, and within an hour he was starting to enjoy it but at the same time trying to preserve his Mr Tough Guy exterior. So he’d be on the floor, with her climbing all over him and pulling his hair, and he’d roll her around and tickle her, and then glance at me to see if I thought this was uncool. I had to work hard to not look in his direction, in the hope that he’d relax and get an idea of life in a real family.

I wondered if he’d be the same with his own sister as he was with Intira. He could have been doing this with Rosie.

Pang and I got dinner; Lee seemed incredibly relieved and grateful to be let off for once, and I didn’t blame him. I could see that none of this came easy for him, but I admired him for sticking to it. I just hoped it didn’t drive him straight to the loony bin. They were nice kids, but they were going a little stir-crazy, in an apartment the size of a double garage and with Lee not being very good at laying down rules and regulations.

But during dinner Intira was poking Paul, Paul was flicking food onto Pang’s plate, Pang was telling them both to shut up, Paul knocked his glass of milk over, Intira decided she wanted to sit next to Gavin, Paul squeezed up next to Gavin just to make Intira feel bad, Intira screamed at Lee when he told her she couldn’t move, and then she threw a piece of bread at Pang because she laughed… It was pretty much like that all the time, and the worst thing was that it didn’t seem out of the ordinary for any of them. I had trouble believing the way Lee bumbled around the edges, so unlike the decisive, strong, calm and collected Lee that I’d known for a long time, and whom I’d gotten to know so well during the war.

I didn’t intervene much, as although I was seeing Lee in a new light, I was pretty sure that some things were still the same, and one of those things was that Lee wouldn’t like being shown up, or given any hints that I thought he was making a mess of it.

When the kids were in bed though, which took an exhausting forty-five minutes — and that was without baths — we sat down and had coffees at the kitchen table. It was funny, there was no hint of sex or relationship stuff in the air. There wasn’t a good atmosphere for that kind of conversation after the noise and conflict of the kids. I was more than happy to avoid it anyway, given that my thoughts were about Jeremy these days, although every time I looked at Lee I couldn’t help thinking how attractive he was.

‘It must be pretty tough living with them all the time,’ I said, hoping this wouldn’t put him into defensive mode.

‘Tell me about it,’ he grunted, with his nose buried in the coffee.

‘How do you get any work done?’

‘I don’t. Well, a little bit, after they go to bed, but I don’t have much energy after putting up with them all night.’

‘It seems kind of weird to see you in a car park fighting enemy soldiers one day and then the next day you’re fighting with Phillip over who does the washing-up.’

He looked up and grinned. I was relieved to see that he hadn’t lost his sense of humour. ‘I’d rather be doing stuff with Liberation than trying to get them to shut up and stop fighting for five minutes.’

‘What’s happening with Liberation? Are there any missions coming up? Has there been any more fallout over our last effort? Jeremy gave me a bit of an update the other day.’

Woops, there it was, I’d said the magic word, after I’d tried so hard to avoid it. Two minutes into the conversation and already Jeremy was there. But Lee didn’t seem to notice.

‘You have no idea,’ he said.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘No idea how nasty they were. What they were planning.’

‘So no-one’s blaming us?’

‘It did get a bit sensitive,’ he admitted. There were some heavy vibes about shooting up so many people in a public place. Seems like they’d have been a lot happier if we’d done it in the bush with no witnesses.’

‘That’s quite chilling. Makes us sound like serial killers.’

We’ve killed a lot of people between us, Ellie.’

I scratched the coffee mug with my finger. ‘I can’t think about it but sometimes I have to. I got so sick of the smell of blood. I still haven’t gotten over that smell.’

‘Well, most of the people we killed were soldiers, if not all of them, but you know what puzzles me? When they say on the news that there’s been a bomb blast or something, they say, “Dozens of people were killed, including some innocent civilians.” Now what does that mean? That all soldiers are guilty, so it doesn’t matter if you kill them? That all civilians are innocent? What, do they run a check on each person’s life and then decide if he should have been allowed to live? How many of those innocent civilians were, like, drug dealers or rapists or people who don’t look after their pets properly? I guess if you or I were killed in a random bomb blast at a bus stop they’d say we were innocent civilians, but I don’t feel too innocent these days.’

I loved and needed these conversations and Lee was very good at them, but I also needed some good advice. I’d told him on the phone why we were coming to the city, but I’d only given him an outline, so now I told him the full story, including the cat. All his tolerance and wisdom immediately deserted him.

‘God, that little toad, that little toad sucker. What the hell is he playing at? Honestly, Ellie, that kid doesn’t know when he’s well off. Put him in a postbag and pack him off to… I don’t know

…’

‘Paraguay? The Philippines? Is this tongue-twister time?’

‘Yeah, any of those’ll do nicely. Patagonia.’

‘Parramatta.’

I soon realised what was happening. Lee was like the others, so caught up with his own troubles, looking after the kids and trying to study, that he didn’t have time for my problems with Gavin. It was disappointing. I could see how fair that was, but sometimes fairness doesn’t count when you want help from a friend. Although we kept talking about Gavin, it was one of those awful conversations where you suddenly realise you’re sounding like your parents. ‘These little kids, they’re so cheeky, they orta show more respect…’

Not that my parents ever talked like that, but my grandmother did, using slightly different words. She’d never have said ‘orta’.