The Eye of the Sheep Read online

  Dad didn’t say anything about Robby leaving. After the last fucking time he couldn’t get his words out because the apertures were blocked and to unblock them would need an operation that he might not survive, the way Pop Flick didn’t survive. Pop Flick died on the table when his heart wouldn’t start, it didn’t matter how many volts they gave him. The things Dad couldn’t say were so important, and so serious, that the smaller things, like What a sunny day, hey? and How are you, Jimmy, my son? and I miss Robby couldn’t get past. I was the one in the house who said the most; maybe that’s why I repeated.

  The day after Robby left I was passing the sitting room when I saw Dad standing at the window. He held the framed photograph of him and Robby on the Lady Free. He didn’t notice me at the door. Dad was on board the Lady Free with Robby and the fish. There was nobody else; just Dad and his firstborn. He stood and stood with the picture gripped in his hands.

  A few days later Dad walked into the kitchen while I was eating baked beans on toast and he said to Mum, ‘I want to take the boy to visit Rod for a few days.’

  I stopped eating the toast – bean sauce dripped down the crust.

  Mum turned around from the sink, rubbing her wet hands on her apron. There was a gap and then she said, ‘You haven’t seen Rod in ages, love.’

  ‘About time, then,’ Dad said.

  Mum nodded as Dad’s answer moved through her network, the new words illuminating her tubes. You could see them flashing under the surface of her skin, light then dark, light then dark. It was only Paula that managed me; she was the expert. ‘When were you thinking you would go?’ she asked him. Her hands were dry but she kept twisting them in her apron anyway.

  ‘I’ve got holidays due. I’ll call Rod. Maybe in a couple of weeks.’

  Uncle Rodney lived on an island. It had a name that didn’t work, as if it had been dropped, like a plate in pieces. What was it? Broken! Broken Island.

  Mum stopped twisting her hands. In between her and my dad was air, floor, a lamp, a cookbook, a telephone, a bottle of orange juice, my toast, the empty bean can, my plate, Mum’s book, me and the table. ‘Alright, love. What a good idea.’

  Dad nodded. ‘Great,’ he said, leaving the kitchen. Mum turned slowly back to the dishes, as if she had to be careful of something new in the house and she didn’t know if it was great or dangerous.

  We lay on my bed and I asked Mum questions. ‘What will happen on the holiday with Dad? What will happen? What will we do?’

  Mum said there was only one way to find out and that was by going. She said, ‘You like your Uncle Rod and he could do with the company since Shirl’s gone. I will miss you but you will have a good time and then you will come home and you can tell me all about it.’

  ‘But, Mum, if nobody has done it before, and nobody knows what will happen, then how do I know that I will even come back home? Nobody knows how it ends because it has never happened anywhere before, so how do I know what the ending will be?’

  ‘That’s enough, Jimmy. You’ll go and you’ll come back and that’s all you need to know.’

  ‘But, Mum, why are we going? Why?’

  ‘Because your father wants to take you on a holiday,’ she said, turning off the light. She pulled up my top and drew letters on my back. I L O V E Y O U. It was true, Dad wanted to take me on a holiday, but why? It hadn’t been just me and Dad for a long time; not since Mum got sick and went into the hospital and Dad and me made the go-cart. Not since then. It was always Mum.

  ‘Mum? When Dad and me go on the holiday will there –’

  ‘Shhhh, love, shhhhh.’

  It was late. I was lying on my bed looking for things to count when I heard Mum and Dad talking. I got up, crossed the hall and sat outside their door.

  ‘But why now, Gav?’ asked Mum.

  ‘Why not now?’

  ‘You’ve never wanted to before.’

  Between each of their answers lay small spaces of thought. Dad didn’t like the questions, but he knew Mum had to ask them. I heard a rope tugging on his plexus.

  ‘Lost one son, don’t want to lose another.’

  ‘You haven’t lost Robby, Gav. He’s just finding his feet out there.’

  ‘I’m not talking about the fishing.’

  ‘You haven’t lost him, Gav.’

  ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.’

  ‘Robby loves you.’

  ‘Well he’s not here.’

  There was a small quiet gap, then Mum said, ‘And Jimmy is.’

  ‘Jimmy is.’ The rope was pulling at its tightest in my dad. ‘If I don’t do something . . .’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Paula, I have to do this.’ His voice was firm, but it took all his strength to keep it there.

  I got up and I walked back across the hall to the sewing room – it was the first time my dad had fought Paula for me. I got into bed and I felt as though it was too small for me, the son who was still here.

  Mum drove us to the airport. Dad wore his striped tie and his suit, and his shoes shone from when he’d polished them that morning.

  ‘You look handsome, Gav,’ Mum said, with a shy smile.

  When we got to the airport I held on to her, not wanting to let go. I had to hide how much I was speeding by biting down. Mum faced me, holding my shoulders in her hands. Dad turned his head as if he didn’t want to see. ‘You’ll be back before you know it, Jimmy,’ she said. But it wasn’t true; when I was back I would know it. There she’d be again.

  I couldn’t let go. I was clamped stiff to her warmth. ‘Jimmy,’ she said, looking into my eyes, ‘do it for me, hey? For Mum?’ I could see tears brewing in her pipes. Air hung in stubborn clouds around her face, refusing to go in.

  ‘Goodbye, Mum,’ I said, stepping back.

  ‘I’ll call you from Rod’s, love,’ Dad said, kissing Mum on the cheek.

  ‘You boys take care,’ Mum said, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand.

  I turned away. I couldn’t look for her wave or her eyes as she left us. They would be in direct communication with my feet and my feet would run back to her, pulled by her need and by mine.

  Aeroplanes lifted into the sky, the long row of windows too small to see a face behind. I closed my eyes, looking for sheep to slow myself down. I thought I saw them peering out from behind rocks, but I couldn’t be sure. I tried to count them, hearing Mum’s quiet numbers just before mine. I repeated the same number when I got too fast. Seven seven seven I blinked and the sheep became shadows without the light. I followed my dad’s body-in-a-suit to the ticket counter.

  Dad walked through a doorway with no walls, and no door. The doorway beeped and he had to go back and take off his boots. He walked through again just in his socks. His yellow nail poked through a small hole. Mum only cut mine, not his. When I walked through the doorway nothing beeped at all. After I got to the other side Dad smiled and said, ‘Enjoying yourself, son?’

  Was I enjoying myself? What were the signs?

  •

  We walked down a white tube that led to the door of the aeroplane. In we went, one by one. I followed Dad between the rows of seats. There were people ahead of me and people behind. I felt hot and itchy under my clothes. My centre trembled; I had never been inside an aeroplane before. I watched them flying over our house. They joined up to an underground computer the size of a factory and every plane that took off and landed made an electric green line across a glass map. Planes were the fastest living things.

  When we got to seats 9A and 9B, Dad checked the tickets and said, ‘This is us.’ He put his bag in the cupboard above our heads and then he buckled me into the seat beside the window. ‘You’ll want the window, won’t you, Jimmy?’ he said.

  I didn’t know. A small seed of sickness, somewhere near the root, took hold in me. The air in the aeroplane was manufactured in the toilet, by machines just under the lid. The air came out of the bowl, down the aisle, entered my nostrils and nourished the seed, the
same way blood and bone nourished Mum’s roses. Ladies dressed up in orange hats and scarves like Sherry, the secretary at the dentist’s, stood in the aisles and waved their arms in a pattern of up and down and side to side for directions. They said make sure you blow the whistle loud, and don’t deflate until you’re out of the water. Their lipsticks all matched their scarves. When their emergency dance finished they sat down and a picture of a seat belt came up in lights. Buckle up.

  When the aeroplane started moving forward I gripped the seat.

  ‘Be a while yet,’ said Dad. ‘Have to get down the runway first.’

  My throat felt dry. The toilet air was cold and bleached. There was no space in it. The aeroplane got very fast and began to roar. I leaned back and Mum’s scrambled eggs rose up to my throat as the plane left the ground. I gripped the armrests, closed my eyes and swallowed. I didn’t move for a long time, as if my stillness was helping to drive the plane. Dad whispered in my ear. ‘Open your eyes, son, and see how small the world is getting down there.’ I opened my eyes and I saw the sea down below. My face went cold as the seed of sickness blossomed inside me. The toilet air couldn’t reach my particles; there were sections going dry. I kept very still, suspended above the sea in the aeroplane without Mum.

  A woman came wearing a hat and a badge that said Tina. ‘Would you like to take the young one into the cockpit for a special treat?’ she asked Dad, smiling.

  ‘How about it, Jim?’ Dad said to me.

  I shook my head.

  ‘Come on, Jimmy. It’s a real treat to go into the cockpit. You can tell them about it at school.’

  Cock. Cockpit. ‘Okay, Dad.’

  Dad unsnapped my belt and we got out of our seats. I followed Dad to the very front of the aeroplane. Tina opened a small white door. The captains steered the aeroplane by looking at a panel. Lights flashed orange, on off, on off. Rows of clocks told different times, arrows pointed the way. The sky was spread before us, never-ending space. If you pulled out the root did you see the same thing? Was the skin an optical illusion?

  ‘Look down there,’ said Dad, pointing.

  I looked down and I saw the cracks between mountains, the walls looming black and steep. They were very dark and they went all the way into the earth’s core.

  ‘Bloody great, isn’t it? Bloody beautiful,’ said Dad.

  Mum’s scrambled eggs rose higher. I couldn’t make my eyes operate; I saw only falling.

  ‘Is this your first time?’ asked one of the captains, pushing aside his mouthpiece. ‘Pretty good, hey?’ He leaned forward and pressed one of the buttons on the dashboard.

  Tina put her hand on my shoulder. Her touch drew the seed like magnoplasm draws a splinter. My eggs rose unstoppably through the tunnel of my throat, out my mouth, splattering the back of the captain of the cockpit. He turned around to me as the eggs fell from my front. We both looked at them as they hit the floor.

  Dad said, ‘Christ, Jimmy.’

  Then he said, Sorry fellas to the captains and Tina found a cloth and I heard, Oh no, oh dear, sorry, oh no, oh no. Dad led me back to the seat. He said, ‘For Christ’s sake.’

  As we took our seats I saw the cracks again, like deep black mouths, the same as the cave under Mrs Stratham’s armour. I saw my arms waving as I fell. My body spun round and round on the way down and I knew I would always be falling, the sickness no longer a seed but a network holding me in its grip like a triffid. ‘My eyes!’ I shouted. ‘My eyes!’

  ‘Quiet, son. Shhh.’

  ‘Blindfold!’ I shouted. Other passengers turned to look at us. ‘Blindfold, blindfold!’ I called again.

  Dad held my knee and looked around us as if he wasn’t sure.

  ‘Blindfold, Dad!’

  His fingers fumbled with the knot as he pulled off his tie – stripes ran sideways red black red black red black, all the way to the tip. He tied it round my head and everything darkened. I breathed in two three four out two three four, keeping each breath exactly the same distance. I brought the world in to darkness and breath and at last I began to slow down. In two three four out two three four. I pulled in deeper breaths than the ones I took at home because I needed the extra to have the same effect. Slower and slower, I was no longer falling but level. I leaned back and there was the chair ready to hold me.

  From behind striped bars I saw Robby; he was the captain of the Indian Ocean. The ship was the Cutty Sark. Robby climbed the boat’s sails and looked out for pirates and told the men to lower the nets, lower the nets. He was the one who could spot the fish – schools of bright orange carp swimming in circles around the boat. Haul them up! he called to the team. Haul them up, boys! And the team pulled up the nets and tipped them onto the deck and the fish poured out in a river of gold. When Captain Robby came down from the cockpit everybody cheered.

  I heard Dad order a beer.

  ‘Wake up, Jim.’ Dad was shaking me. The aeroplane had stopped. He pulled the tie from my head. Light burned my eyes. ‘We’re here.’ He got out of his seat and took his bag out of the cupboard above our heads. ‘Come on,’ he said.

  I got out of my seat and followed Dad down the middle of the aeroplane. We came to a doorway where Tina was standing. She held out her arm to show me the metal stairs leading to the ground.

  ‘Careful, son,’ Dad said. He held out his hand.

  I took it and we went out of the aeroplane and down the stairs into the glaring light, and then we stepped onto the grey tar of the airport. The sun was bright and hot, everything was shining under it. The lid of the sky holding it all was bright blue. I couldn’t see one cloud.

  ‘Sunshine,’ said Dad. ‘Makes a nice change.’

  We walked with all the other passengers towards a building with two layers of windows. When we were close enough I saw Uncle Rodney waving through one on the top layer. I couldn’t see his face, only his waving hand and his head. Uncle Rodney used to own a marine and tackle shop on the mainland; he sold bait and hooks and lines and anchors. He let me touch the hooks and the frozen prawns even though I was very small then and could have caused a breakage or tried to swallow a float. Then he moved to Broken Island and set up a new shop with less business but more time to fish. It was a lifestyle.

  We got through the doors and Uncle Rodney came towards us. ‘G’day, Gav. G’day, Jim. Let me take your bag.’ Dad gave his bag to Uncle Rodney. Uncle Rodney put his hand on my back. ‘You’ve grown, mate. You used to be a little feller. Jeez. Look at you now. Big man, you are!’

  ‘No I’m not, Uncle Rodney,’ I said. ‘I’m the smallest in my class – and the oldest.’

  ‘Alright, son, settle down,’ said Dad.

  ‘Well you look bloody big to me, mate,’ said Uncle Rodney. ‘Don’t know if you’ll fit in the bloody bed.’

  Uncle Rodney took us over to his white car waiting in the car park. I climbed into the back seat and Dad and Uncle Rodney got in the front. The window went down without me turning the handle. ‘Can you do that again, Uncle Rodney?’ I asked him.

  ‘What’s that, Jimmy?’

  ‘Can you press the window button again?’

  He pressed it again and the window went down then up then down then up again. Uncle Rodney was pressing it then not pressing it then pressing it again.

  ‘Aren’t you a bit old for that, Jimmy?’ Dad said.

  ‘Never too old for the Statesman, Gav. You can get to know her better over the next few days.’ Uncle Rodney pressed the button again.

  ‘Never too old! Never too old!’ I repeated.

  ‘Easy does it, son,’ said Dad.

  The Statesman’s internals were wrapped in wires, connecting up to the main control panel. They twisted round each other, just under the surface of the car, in all colours, each wire with a different signal and code. They put them in the metal, in the doors, the tyres, the boot, like the fibres in the rabbit, all connecting up to the control panel in front of Uncle Rodney. ‘Uncle Rodney, how do you like your cock pit?’ I shouted. ‘Cock! Cock!’
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  ‘That’s enough, Jimmy. Sit back and settle down.’ Dad sounded scared.

  ‘It’s alright, Gav, the boy’s no problem.’ Uncle Rodney’s voice was broader and wider than Dad’s. ‘Cock’s a cock.’

  ‘He gets a bit excited.’ Dad lit up a fag and gave one to Uncle Rodney. They both smoked and talked about the weather and Uncle Rodney said how it had been a bit tough since Shirley left because there was no one to cook and how he always ate counter meals now and that was a lot of chicken parmies and chips and he patted his stomach where the belt stretched across and then the car went quiet. Outside the Statesman, palm trees with heads like giant pineapples swayed in a line along the sea.

  When Uncle Rodney opened his front door a big grey dog with long legs and long hair came out and jumped on him. ‘Ned is the missus’s replacement,’ said Uncle Rodney. Ned licked his face. ‘Only a lot more affectionate. Say g’day, Jim. Ned loves kids.’

  I touched Ned’s head with my fingers and a small current entered my hand wires. We couldn’t have a dog at home because its fur would clog Mum’s air ducts. We couldn’t have a cat either, or a guinea pig or a chicken or a mouse or a rabbit. Ned spun in circles, smelling Dad then me then Uncle Rodney.

  ‘Settle down, Ned, and let Jim say hello.’ Uncle Rodney smoothed his hand across Ned’s head until the big dog was quiet and still. ‘Say hello, Jimmy, he won’t hurt you.’

  Ned sat on his back legs and I went closer. Ned didn’t blink as he took in the scent of me and made his decision. I looked into his eyes and I saw myself inside them; I was suspended in the same light as in the sheep. I felt my cells slowing down until they spun at the same speed as Ned’s; there was no difference.