Gravity Is the Thing Page 8

  ‘Just the ticket,’ he said. ‘In keeping with your explorer theme.’

  We made a lot of fun of him about that. In keeping with your explorer theme.

  *

  They’re those kind of parents, like I said—they believe in letting us find our own way. When we were babies, they used to let us crawl off into the distance, and we always came back, they said, except for one famous incident when I crawled under the fence of a park, crossed a soccer field and was heading up the embankment towards a highway. Somebody rescued me, and Mum and Dad say they rethought their parenting strategy for a while after that.

  But they decided that that was just a glitch, and reintroduced it.

  Anyway, my parents are fine about our secret whisky ceremony. They like it even. They’re happy about how close Robert and I are, and they attribute our closeness to their freedom-in-parenting philosophy.

  *

  This one time that Samuel and I had sex, his mother was in the sewing room down the hall. We were just kissing, me thinking it would not lead anywhere because, well, his mother was down the hall. Then Samuel went to the cupboard and got out the condoms.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said, laughing. I thought it was a joke, like we were sharing a joke.

  But he put on a sad face and mouthed, Please, and I shook my head, still smiling: no way. His mother was about to come to the door and offer to drive me home—she always did that at exactly 6 pm—no way was I going to have sex.

  Then Samuel got a strange expression on his face and came over to the bed in two strides and he said in a low voice, ‘I’m going to do it anyway.’

  I had enough time to feel a bit confused, like—wait, he’s allowed to just do it?—and next thing he was on top of me, pushing my dress up and my underpants aside. I could shout, ‘NO!’ but then his mother would hear, and anyway, now he was kissing me, and getting on with things, and then he was done.

  ‘See?’ he whispered. ‘That was fine.’ Because there were still a couple of minutes before his mother would jingle her car keys on their little Smurf key ring.

  *

  After that, I was cold with Samuel and he kept going, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ and I would say, ‘If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you.’ He got so angry about that. It’s a girl thing to do, apparently.

  A couple of weeks later, he broke up with me because he wanted to have sex with other people. I couldn’t expect him to only have sex with one person in his entire life! Actually, I didn’t have that expectation of him. I hadn’t really thought about the next few months, let alone life.

  But I’d imagined he’d be there, in my life, for, you know, the next day.

  I was pretty sad. We were sitting on his bed, and he had his arm around me, and he was rocking me back and forth. It was romantic. Yet also a bit strange. Then he got up and put on Roxy Music’s ‘Angel Eyes’, looking back at me with tragic (rather than angel) eyes, as he tried to line up the start of the song. He did a lot of rewind, stop, play, rewind, stop, play. He became a bit frustrated but got it in the end.

  Then he sat back on the bed and rubbed my back while I cried. At the same time, I was thinking, ‘He’s put on “Angel Eyes”! He’s changed his mind about breaking up!’ Because ‘Angel Eyes’ was his song for me. Also his nickname for me. Two for the price of one.

  But it turned out he was just playing it as part of his strategy to comfort me. So then I cried a bit more, and went home.

  *

  That was the day my brother got the news from the doctor.

  He didn’t tell me about it straight away. To be honest, I forgot he’d been going to the doctor’s that day to get the results. I was too upset about Samuel.

  Mum had gone out to the shops. I told Robert that Samuel had broken up with me, and Robert was so mad! He was going, ‘What? Why would he do that? Samuel? You mean your Samuel?’

  I was glad that he said your Samuel. Like he still believed that Samuel belonged to me, even though Samuel seemed to have forgotten it.

  He was really pissed off with Samuel. He promised me I’d meet someone better tomorrow.

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  And he nodded seriously. ‘Tomorrow you will meet someone better.’

  He was so sure about it, I believed him and felt excited. I wondered if the new boy would be cute.

  ‘Cuter than Samuel,’ Robert promised.

  Then Mum got home, looked in at us, and fixed her tender gaze on Robert for a bit longer than necessary, so I remembered.

  I said, ‘Oh yeah, what did the doctor say?’

  That’s when Robert told me that he had multiple sclerosis. (It’s a misdiagnosis, I am sure.) Mum stood at the bedroom door, watching him tell, and watching me tell him that it must be a misdiagnosis.

  *

  After Samuel and I broke up I was depressed for a while, and then I got more depressed because I remembered something.

  I’d been planning to have sex for the first time with someone I truly loved! I had a whole plan for that! I’d just forgotten about that, getting caught in the heat of the argument.

  We’d been arguing about it pretty well since we started going out, in fact. Samuel was worried about the fact that he was seventeen, which meant he could easily turn eighteen and he’d still have his virginity. Imagine if he was able to drink and vote and be an adult but still had his virginity! He didn’t want it. ‘How do I get rid of it without your help?’ he demanded.

  ‘What d’you want me to do?’ I said. ‘Chuck it over a bridge for you?’

  But he said I should take this more seriously.

  Sometimes I’d wake in the night at home and go, wait a second, why is his virginity my problem? But during the arguments I’d forget that, and get caught up in how to solve Samuel’s problem. Also, I didn’t like him using the word virginity; it made him sound like a girl or like the Holy Mother of God.

  I think that’s why I agreed in the end. I was just worn out, and wanted him to quit using that word.

  *

  It is now 2 am.

  *

  One day, Mum and I were in the kitchen talking about the person who invented multiple sclerosis.

  She’d been reading about him, apparently. His name was Jean-Martin Charcot and ‘he ought to be shot’.

  Robert and I agreed.

  He was French, Mum added ominously, as if being French explained a lot.

  ‘What’s wrong with French people?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, you know, they’re always wearing stripes and eating croissants,’ she said, and then she raised her voice over our hysterical laughter to explain that Charcot went around inventing things all the time—‘well, naming them,’ she admitted. In addition to MS, there was Parkinson’s and Tourette’s, for example.

  ‘All we need to know about him,’ she finished dramatically, ‘is that, after he died, his son gave up medicine and became the world’s first polar explorer. That’s about all we need to know.’

  At this point, Robert and I looked at each other, and then at Mum, and we squinted hard, to illustrate just how bewildering our mother was. She was lost in thought at the stove now, but noticed our squinting and got annoyed with us.

  Robert was stringing beans, I was peeling potatoes. Mum put her hands on her hips and said, ‘The son had been a doctor because his dad wanted him to be. But the moment his dad died? He ran off and became an explorer!’

  So then we understood that the dad had not allowed the son to be free. As our parents allowed us be free.

  ‘The son named an island after his father,’ Mum added listlessly.

  ‘So at least he liked his father,’ Robert said.

  ‘Of course he didn’t,’ Mum protested. ‘The naming thing was an effort to compensate for his hatred of his father.’

  ‘Well,’ I contributed, ‘his dad named diseases; he named islands. That’s what that family were all about. Naming.’

  I was also thinking that maybe he did want to be a doctor, but changed his mind and
thought, polar explorer! right after his dad died.

  Or maybe he felt so desperately sad about the loss of his dad that his heart turned to ice, and he ran away to the polar regions, looking for someplace even colder.

  I didn’t say any of that.

  ‘Maybe he did want to be a doctor,’ Robert said, which gave me the strange feeling I get sometimes that maybe we have a psychic connection, like actual twins. ‘And when his dad died, he felt so sad he just wanted to go as far away as he could, like running away from his grief, as far as the North Pole.’

  ‘Hm,’ said Mum, but she didn’t sound convinced.

  *

  2.49 am.

  *

  Robert was having a bad day on Tuesday, and he stayed home from school and just lay on his bed.

  When I got home, I went into his room with a glass of lemonade and a packet of chips, plus some homework a teacher gave me to pass on to him, plus three different notes from friends of his at school.

  He was looking a bit pale. He said, ‘I’ve got a joke for you. You want to hear it?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  ‘What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants coming over the hill?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Here come the elephants!’

  I looked at him a bit sternly.

  ‘Wait—it’s a two-part joke,’ he said.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants coming over the hill wearing sunglasses?’

  I thought about it. I wanted to come up with a humorous answer of my own. But in the end I just said, ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Robert said. ‘He didn’t recognise them.’

  I looked at him for a while.

  ‘So Tarzan saw the elephants coming, and they were wearing sunglasses, so he didn’t recognise them?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Robert,’ I said, ‘that’s not funny.’

  His face fell.

  ‘Part one of the joke isn’t funny,’ I said, ‘and part two doesn’t save it.’

  Robert frowned, thinking it through. He played with the corner of his pillow. Then he straightened up and said, ‘I see your point.’

  ‘I mean, I don’t even really get it,’ I admitted.

  He nodded.

  I elaborated. ‘And if I did get it, it still wouldn’t be funny.’

  The fact is, just because you’ve been diagnosed with a serious, possibly even life-threatening disease, doesn’t mean you can let your sense of humour slip. I didn’t say that, but it was implied.

  *

  He went to Clarissa’s place that night, so he can’t have been that sick. I haven’t spoken to him since. I can only hope he’s out there gathering better jokes.

  *

  I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but I’m using a technique that I learned in the creative writing workshop. It’s called impressionistic glances.

  At least, I think that’s what I’m doing. Maybe I need to be more fleeting. My impressionistic glances might be more like impressionistic, long, unnerving stares.

  Anyway, you just write quick scenes/moments/thoughts that come out of nowhere. Like silver fish darting by in an aquarium (the teacher said). You put dots between them—the dots could be fish food, someone in the class suggested. It was a belligerent guy with square-framed glasses and when I looked back at him, the light hit the glasses and made me think of a fish tank. ‘Okay, yeah,’ the teacher said to that, ‘but let’s not . . .’ and then she petered off.

  *

  I have a new boyfriend now. His name is Peter. He falls asleep listening to the Cure each night, and he wears black eyeliner.

  *

  Meanwhile, here I am petering off . . . Ha ha.

  *

  Anyhow, Peter’s crazy. Not in the technical sense, more in the wow, he doesn’t fit into any category sense. He says we’re stepping out together. Not ‘going out’, but stepping out. Which makes him sound like he’s sort of a dork, but no, he’s the opposite. He and cool are also stepping out together, if you see what I mean. (I mean he’s cool.) He’s got the mod look, so he’s all slick black hair, black pointy shoes, thin black tie, smudgy eyeliner, and his eyes themselves look like he’s about to say something hilarious. Those sort of eyes. And he says things from other eras.

  Stepping out. It’s funny. The image of Peter and me, our feet lined up side by side. Like the start of a tap dance. Like a sunny day and me in a yellow dress which billows out like an umbrella.

  *

  One final thing about my novella before I fall asleep.

  The wise seven-year-old boy?

  He’s going to be sucked back into the cruise ship novel. Because the author of that novel will decide s/he wants to resurrect him. The boy will be seen from the deck of the ship, bobbing up and down in one of those rings—and everyone in the novel will shout in disbelief: ‘HE’S ALIVE! HE’S ALIVE!’

  He’ll wave, lethargically, from the water. He’ll be suffering from exhaustion and hypothermia. There’ll be a tearful reunion with his mother.

  *

  Going to sleep. Robert still not here. Very mad at him.

  It’s 5 am.

  Happy birthday to me, and to all a good night.

  part

  3

  1.

  I flew home from Taylor Island—ha, I mean I flew in an aeroplane—reconfiguring my rage back into wry amusement. Life, I said to myself, smiling faintly. Life!

  It was late by the time I reached Crows Nest, and Oscar was already asleep. Mum and I had tea, and she told me, as usual, that Oscar is the spitting image of Robert. I never see the resemblance. I see Oscar’s father in his face, flashes of it, and sometimes, alarmingly, my own soft cheeks and puzzled gaze. But: ‘You’re a little Robert!’ my mother says to Oscar. And to me: ‘When he’s concentrating, he gets the exact expression Robert used to get.’

  I worry that this is a weight on Oscar’s tiny shoulders. There are photos of Robert on my mantelpiece; Robert’s childhood artwork is framed on my walls. We all tell stories of Robert to Oscar, for the pleasure of it, and because he belongs in our family. An imaginary uncle, a hero, an enigma, watches over him, and this is who my mother expects Oscar to become.

  I told Mum the hilarious story of the weekend. The sack races, the balloons, the paper planes, the competition for selection, and then the punchline: all this time they’d been teaching me to fly!

  She laughed in surprise, and then fell about laughing properly, although I think this was partly relief that I hadn’t joined a cult.

  Eventually, her stomach was hurting so she had to stop. She grew thoughtful instead, and asked me how I felt about having read the chapters for ‘all those years’, never knowing that the writers were ‘bonkers’.

  ‘All those years,’ she repeated wistfully. ‘Bonkers.’

  I assumed my wryly amused expression and explained that I’d mostly thrown the chapters away, or mocked them. It wasn’t like I’d constructed my life around them. I told her about Frangipani—only her real name was Sasha, I explained, and Mum said ‘yes, yes,’ understanding that here was a woman with two names—and said I had the impression that she had taken every word of The Guidebook seriously, that it had been the framework for her reality. We shook our heads sadly at how she must be feeling, the crack running through her existence.

  ‘But still,’ Mum said, ‘I’m thinking of you, too. All those years you’ve been getting those chapters in the mail? And didn’t you write out your thoughts—or what was it, reflections?—for them at the end of every year and send them in? All those years!’

  Then I got a bit testy and said it was time for me to go. I gave her a jar of honey, a slab of King Island brie and a little book of Sudoku puzzles, to thank her for looking after Oscar.

  Oscar stayed asleep when I carried him to the car, but he woke abruptly during the drive home to announce that it was a ‘boat, not a helicopter’.

  ‘What was?’ I looked in the rear-view mirror
: dark shape in car seat, gleaming eyes. I thought he must be dreaming aloud. I kept my voice dreamy so he could re-enter sleep at any point.

  ‘My Batman boat. It’s a boat, not a helicopter.’

  ‘Of course it is,’ I agreed.

  ‘Grandma thinked it was a helicopter,’ he said, ‘and it’s not.’

  It seemed we were awake, discussing life.

  Several times, he repeated: It’s a boat, not a helicopter!

  Each time, I agreed whole-heartedly. Yes. Your Batman boat is a boat. No question.

  I saw this could go on indefinitely. As we turned up Kurraba Road, I said: ‘Oscar, did you tell Grandma that it was a boat?’

  ‘That’s easy,’ he replied. ‘Every time Grandma say-ed it was a helicopter, I say-ed, I see what you mean.’

  ‘Um?’

  ‘I keeped on saying I see what you mean, but she just keeped on saying, Got your helicopter? and, Oops, you dropped your helicopter!’

  ‘So what you’re telling me,’ I said, as I manoeuvred into a parking spot, ‘is that Grandma has been referring to your Batman boat as a helicopter for the last three days, and instead of saying, Grandma! It’s not a helicopter! It’s a boat! you’ve been saying, I see what you mean, and hoping this would make her stop?’

  ‘She didn’t stop,’ he told me grimly.

  I had been looking forward to carrying a sweet, sleeping boy inside, placing him ever so gently onto the bed and covering him up, hearing him do a little snuffly thing, holding my breath until he relaxed into sleep again, gazing down at him with a surge of love—he’s so exquisite!—stroking his soft face with my fingers, wishing he was awake so I could hear his little voice, and then creeping back out of the room and getting a cup of tea and some chocolate.

  However, we walked up the stairs side by side, arguing about whether I should call Grandma right now to tell her it was a boat.

  Eventually, he was in bed and I had to do the whole routine: ‘Twinkle, Twinkle’; ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’; ‘Lullaby and Goodnight’; and ‘Hush, Little Baby’. (I don’t know the words of that last one, I just make it up. Hush, little baby, don’t you cry, Mumma’s gonna bake you a lemon meringue pie. And if that lemon meringue pie’s too flaky, Mumma’s gonna play you music that’s groovin’ and shaky. That’s just one example. It varies a lot.)