The Eye of the Sheep Page 18

  ‘We need the bed, Andrew. There’s no reason for him to stay. When’s the uncle due?’

  ‘Any minute.’

  ‘You better be right. He needs to be out of here by the end of the day.’

  ‘He still hasn’t spoken.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with him.’

  ‘He’s in shock.’

  ‘We can’t let him have a bed. There has to be someone or he goes into state care – but not this part of state care.’

  ‘Just until the end of the day.’

  ‘I’ll be back at five. Then that’s it.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘What’s his name – have you figured that much out?’

  ‘Jim. Jim Flick.’

  I rolled back my eyes and watched as the empty space where my network should have been began to fill with rusted engines and wheels and belts and fans and glass and gearshifts and exhaust pipes and radiators and Coke cans and old tyres. I was being stretched.

  •

  ‘Well, Andrew?’

  ‘Please, just one more night. The uncle called, he’ll be here at nine am. He couldn’t get a flight any earlier.’

  ‘The boy can’t stay. There are children who need the beds. If there’s something wrong he needs to be in a psychiatric ward.’

  ‘No, he doesn’t need that. He’s just lost his mother. He was in the room with her for four days.’

  ‘These beds are for sick children.’

  ‘Okay, okay. I’ll take care of it.

  ‘Now, please.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Andrew helped me out of the bed, his hands against my back. I could feel the warmth between us but it was only happening to my outer casing. I was external to myself, watching from a new land. The police had taken my words at the entrance, locking them in a box and storing them in alphabetical order alongside the other mutes’.

  ‘Come on, mate, we need to get you out of here.’

  My legs shook as Andrew took my hand and led me out of the hospital.

  ‘How long since you saw your uncle?’ Andrew asked as we drove.

  I looked for the line between shops and gutters and lampposts and buses and bins but it had disappeared.

  ‘Can you remember when?’

  The road was crowded with cars and trucks and a motorbike, all pushing to get to the front. Vehicles took the empty places then vacated them, seeking others. There was empty space changing shape, but no connecting line.

  ‘What about your father? When did you last see him?’

  I could hear Andrew’s voice, as warm as the first time, but it was like the television being on without watching it.

  ‘We know your brother is away on a boat. That’s pretty exciting, hey?’

  His voice came and went, mixing with the rumble of the car’s engine. But I had nothing for him. I was wordless.

  Andrew stopped the car at a building of pale bricks with a broken window and bars across. Outside the building was barbed wire and some writing in pink, purple and green painted across the side. The writing had its own code, indecipherable to the naked eye.

  ‘It’s just for the night,’ said Andrew. ‘Until your uncle comes.’

  We walked towards the building. I read the sign out the front.

  LATITUDE

  South Western Juvenile Shelter

  Andrew led me through double doors, his hand on my back. A woman came towards us. She had hair as short as a man’s and she was a man, and she was a woman at the same time. She gave us a small difficult smile, as if it was the last coin in her wallet.

  ‘G’day, Julie – this is Jim,’ said Andrew.

  Julie looked at me with lines deepening across the top of her face. ‘You never told me he was so young, Andy. You sure you’re in the right place?’

  ‘There’s nowhere else. It’s not for long. He just needs a place to sleep.’

  ‘Sounds like he’s looking for a hotel. Do you know how short we are at the moment?’

  ‘Come on, Julie. The kid has been through enough. He hasn’t spoken since they found him.’ He put his hand on my shoulder.

  ‘Okay, Mr Bleeding Heart.’ Julie looked at me and wrote something down. ‘Welcome to Latitude, Jim,’ she said.

  ‘His uncle will be here to pick him up tomorrow morning. He doesn’t have anything with him except a pair of pyjamas someone at the hospital gave him.’ Then Andrew’s voice dipped low, as if he had a secret to share with Julie. They spoke and looked across at me and spoke again. Julie shook her head. They had to move closer to me to make room for a girl walking past. She was as dark as chocolate and wore fur boots and chewed gum, and she said, ‘S’cuse me, boss.’ Now Andrew and Julie were close enough for me to hear what they were saying.

  ‘She had no living relatives. It’s the father’s brother who’s coming for him – he doesn’t know where the old man is either. Disappeared off the planet – could be dead for all we know.’

  ‘Okay. But if the uncle doesn’t show up in the morning I’ll be calling you. They’ll eat him alive in this place.’

  ‘No worries, Julie. Thanks.’ Andrew turned to me. ‘Your uncle will be here in the morning.’ I could see his bleeding heart through his shirt. It was on its knees, hands pressed together. Then he walked out and I was left with Julie.

  ‘Come with me,’ she said.

  I followed her down a long corridor that ended at a small room with a bed and a sink and a poster on the wall of hands gripping each other. Above the poster it said Wash your hands. There were bubbles rising up around the hands but there was no body, the hands ended at the wrists.

  ‘You’ll have to stay in here, Jim. It’s our sick room. It’s all we’ve got left. I’ll come and get you soon for dinner.’ She opened a door in the corner. ‘There’s a toilet in there. I’ll bring soap and a toothbrush, okay?’ She waited for something that didn’t come. ‘Okay then,’ she said, and left the room.

  I sat on the bed, my back against the wall, and turned off my remaining switches. Even then I kept breathing. It was as if I was hooked to a small plastic pump hanging in the air somewhere over my head, pulsing in out in out, but not because of anything that I did or wanted. It was made to, by gravity and tides, forces greater than one human being. But there was nothing to breathe for.

  I don’t know how much time passed before Julie opened the door.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Dinner.’

  She led me to a room with tables and chairs. People came out of doors and sat at the tables. They were young the way Robby used to be, but older than me. Their hands were all hidden in their sleeves, as if they were scared somebody would try and cut them off. Maybe the poster in the bathroom was a warning.

  ‘You don’t have to talk but you should eat. You’ll sleep better tonight,’ said Julie.

  She took me to a place at one of the tables. I kept one half of my bottom on the chair and the other almost off. I tipped the chair back and forth. My leg wasn’t strong enough to hold me; I could feel it shaking.

  Julie put a plate with chips and peas and steak in a puddle of sauce on the table in front of me. When she walked away I pushed the plate to the middle.

  A girl with sores on her face sitting opposite me said, ‘You got to eat – you’re skinny enough. You want to grow, don’t you?’ Each sore was a mountain with snow on top.

  A boy with muscle slung across his shoulders sat down beside her. ‘Eat him yourself, Jennifer. You know you want to.’

  ‘You know you want to,’ Jennifer said back to him. ‘Paedophile.’

  ‘You have to be over sixteen to be a paedophile, Jennifer. Like your old man.’

  ‘Like your old man,’ Jennifer said. She laughed and I saw milk inside her mouth.

  ‘Where are you from?’ a boy with a backwards cap asked.

  ‘He doesn’t talk,’ said another girl. Her teeth were broken and they’d cut her gums the ends were so sharp. There was blood on her lips in the shape of her broken teeth.

  ‘I tried that for
a while,’ said Jennifer. ‘At the end of two days my brother said, “Hey, Jen, you stink like shit,” and I forgot I didn’t talk and I said, “Fuck you!” Dad was listening and he said, “You’ve been faking it, you silly bitch!” But it was good for two days. They thought I was in toxic shock from seeing someone’s leg severed, or their head come off and the brains come out. My brother knew I was faking it.’ Jennifer sucked on a chop, oil around her lips, then turned to me. ‘Are you faking it? Can you talk or what?’

  I was falling like dust, slowly, as the old world outside of me went on, not knowing that I’d left. I was in Latitude, where everything fell.

  •

  ‘I asked you a question,’ Jennifer said, putting her chop bone back on her plate. She took a long drink of her milk. ‘Just because you can’t talk doesn’t mean you can’t hear.’ She moved close to my ear and shouted, ‘Can you hear me?’ The notes of her shouting tumbled over each other down my canal until they reached little drums beaten by automatic sticks.

  I began to shake, as fast as the sticks, arms and legs and head, shake shake shaking, I was a firecracker, spinning across the room.

  ‘Ha! Look at him go!’

  ‘You pressed his button, Jennifer!’

  ‘Go, kid, go!’

  ‘Ha ha!’

  ‘Go go go!’ I spun to their shouting. ‘Go! Go! Go!’ I was zipping off the walls, sound ripping through me, the flames of the refinery pipes jetting from my heels.

  Then suddenly there were arms were around me. ‘Can’t you lot be trusted for one second?’ Julie shouted as she held me. ‘Jennifer, get back to your room! Taylor, that’s enough. Jim, it’s okay. Nothing’s happened. Calm down . . .’

  Julie took me back to the sick room. ‘I’ll have to lock you in, Jim. Someone will come to check on you soon.’ The man and the woman in Julie battled each other for territory. ‘It’s the best I can do.’

  Then she was gone. I rolled onto my side on the bed as darkness moved over me.

  There were no stars or suns or planets or moons or seas – nothing to count or wait for, no light from the eye of the sheep.

  Only the dust from the wings of moths remained. It thickened the air; slowed my falling.

  When the door opened again I was still on my side; I hadn’t moved. Uncle Rodney walked into the sick room with Julie behind him.

  ‘Good morning, Jim. Your uncle’s here for you.’ She was smiling like Uncle Rodney had come for her instead.

  Uncle Rodney’s face was grey, as if somebody had shaded him in with a lead pencil. There were grey loops under his eyes and grey lines across his forehead, where the pencil had been pressed harder.

  ‘Jim!’ he said, coming towards me. I heard crying resonating in his engine. He shook his head and kneeled in front of me, putting his arms around me. ‘Are you alright, Jim? Are you okay?’ He looked up at Julie, his voice quick and scared. ‘Is he okay?’

  ‘Like I said,’ she answered, ‘we’ve only had him for the night. They needed the beds at the hospital. I suppose they wouldn’t have let him out if he wasn’t okay. He hasn’t spoken since they found him. I don’t know what’s normal for him. He hasn’t eaten much either.’

  Uncle Rodney looked back at me. ‘We’d better do something about that, huh, Jim? A man’s got to eat, huh? You’ll be okay, Jimmy. It’s going to be okay.’ He stood up. ‘Thanks for looking after him,’ he said to Julie, taking my hand in his. ‘Come on, Jim. Let’s get you out of here.’

  As we passed through an open door I saw Jennifer and Taylor and Danny sitting against the fence. There was music playing from a silver box and Danny was moving his hands up and down as if they were gutters with water flowing through. Taylor was chewing as she watched Danny. Her white piece of gum was tossed around inside her mouth like a fish in a sea storm, the teeth coming down on it, the tongue throwing it from side to side.

  Jennifer waved to me. ‘See ya, Speechless. Don’t let ’em trick you into it!’

  I turned away as Uncle Rodney led me through the gates and down the steps to a waiting car.

  Uncle Rodney opened the door and I climbed in. I rested back on the seat, closing my eyes. Uncle Rodney started the car.

  ‘Jimmy, we’re going to catch a plane back to the island tomorrow, okay? You can stay with me for a while – until . . . I’ve set up the spare room for you, okay? We need to go to your place first, though. Just to pick up some of your gear. Sort out a couple of things, okay?’

  When I looked across at Uncle Rodney it was as if I was seeing him through an unwashed window.

  ‘When are you going to talk to me, hey, Jimmy?’ He glanced at me, then back at the road. ‘Are you hungry? You look thin, Jim. You need to eat, you know.’ He turned off the radio in his car. ‘I’m sorry about Paula, Jimmy.’ I could see how much each word hurt his mouth when he spoke it. I’m sorry about Paula. ‘We’re going to track down your old man and everything is going to be alright. Ned will be happy to see you, Jimmy. He’s missed you.’ His small laugh was tired, its little engine weak. He looked ahead and the talking stopped.

  When he saw a petrol station he turned into its driveway. ‘You need to go to the toilet, Jimmy?’ he asked. Outside, customers filled their tanks with sauce from the core, sucking it up through pipes then pressing the handle. Uncle Rodney shook his head and sighed. ‘Okay, you stay there. I’ll get us something for breakfast.’

  I watched him walk into the petrol station. I saw him go to the fridge and choose. Soon he came back to the car with sandwiches and chocolate milk. He passed me a sandwich with chicken squeezing out the side. I picked up the chocolate milk.

  ‘Good on you, Jim.’ Uncle Rodney started the engine.

  I sat with the chocolate milk in my lap as Uncle Rodney drove back out onto the highway.

  ‘Go on, drink it, Jimmy. Stop stuffing round.’ He stuck the straw into the automatic drinking hole and passed it back to me. ‘Drink it,’ he said.

  I took the milk, put the straw to my mouth and sucked. Cold chocolate milk flooded the system.

  Uncle Rodney breathed out. More road passed. Uncle Rodney twitched, his hands rubbed up and down his leg. He looked at me then at the road then at me then at the road. ‘I didn’t know your dad wasn’t around,’ he said after a while. ‘Nobody told me. I saw you . . . not even five months ago – Jesus it feels like yesterday. Things were alright then, weren’t they? Back in January? I didn’t know he’d left. I didn’t know you and Paula were there alone.’ Uncle Rodney shook his head.

  ‘The neighbour – what was her name? – Mrs . . . what was it? She said to the cops that he’d been knocking your Mum around . . .’ Uncle Rodney shook his head. ‘Is it true, Jimmy? It’s not true, is it?’

  Puffs of white cloud hung in the sky. They were very still, not one part of any cloud moved. No new things formed.

  ‘Fuck, Gavin . . .’ Uncle Rodney kept shaking his head, then he took in a deep breath and sighed one out. ‘Bloody hell.’ He undid the window and did it up again. ‘Poor Paula.’

  The inside of me slid out of my ears like steam, spectating from above. Uncle Rodney put his hand on my shoulder. There was bone underneath the skin that connected the arm to the body. There were tubes wrapped around it transporting chocolate milk to my organs.

  Uncle Rodney kept talking. ‘I can’t get hold of your brother. He’s out at bloody sea somewhere. You’ll have to stay with me until we get something sorted. But I have to work. I’ve got Dave minding the shop while I’m here, but he can’t keep that up.’

  Uncle Rodney drove the car into Emu Street. It was like looking at a diagram from one of my manuals but the connecting lines were missing; there was nothing joining me to the house or the house to the road or the road to the world.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jimmy, you’ll have to come in with me. I have to see if I can find something that might tell us where your dad is. Or Robby. And we need your things.’ He reached across me and opened my door. There were tiny black dots of hair over the bottom half of his
face. If my eyes were small enough I could have looked straight down the hole at the end of every hair and seen into the memory bank behind Uncle Rodney’s skin. ‘Come on, Jimmy,’ he said.

  I followed him up the path; I saw my old footprints in the concrete, I saw Mum’s spade, her bucket, her kneeling pad, her glove. Doris began to sing, Won’t you tell me that you love me? Won’t you tell me that you do?

  ‘I’m sorry you have to deal with this, Jim. Jesus.’

  He opened the door and we went into Nineteen Emu. I looked around the kitchen at the curtain with roses and sparrows, the Sunlight Lemon, the wallpaper apples, the teacup, the upside-down dish rack, the apron with rows of roosters and suns hanging over the stove, and I felt the pull of sleep coming up from underground. I saw the window with chips in the frame, the vase without flowers, the magnets holding lists and recipes . . . The force from underground pulled on the bones in my arms and legs . . . The puppy salt and pepper shakers, the kitten poster We are in this together with one kitten hanging from a branch about to drop, the other with his eyes wide, reaching out a paw . . . Sleep pulling on my chest cavity, my neck, through my face to my eyes. I couldn’t resist the force. I lay back on the kitchen couch where my mum read her Agathas and I closed my eyes.

  ‘You just stay there, Jimmy. That’s a good idea, have a rest.’ Uncle Rodney talked as he looked at papers by the telephone. He began to speak to someone. His voice came in and out, like a radio station not tuned, almost catching voices, then missing again.

  ‘No bloody idea . . . I don’t know . . . It’s a mess . . . Asthma . . . No, she was pretty sick. Nobody knew . . . Oh shit . . . Gavin was knocking her around . . . I know, I know, it wasn’t even five months ago he was on the island with Jim. Shit! Things seemed okay, really okay . . . No, the kid won’t speak, not a bloody word . . . Oh shit, mate, she had nobody here . . . I don’t know . . . oh Jesus . . . I don’t know. Give the dog a drink will you? . . . Yeah, he tips his water out. Bloody idiot dog . . . Yeah, mate, tomorrow afternoon . . . No, he’s asleep . . . Yeah mate, thanks.’