My Da kept a rock hammer by his bed – a tiny thing – for the scrapes that were all up close and personal. The bat was for bigger things, for faraway men. Never to be used for cricket mind you, even when we asked.

​

When I crawled into my parent’s bed – all soft, all flat, all scared – my Da would grumble, roll over and continue snoring. Ma would whisper that his blocked nose could rattle the rafters as I nestled into her soft body and we would slot together – knees, hips, hearts.  But I would see them lying there on the ground, the Laurel and Hardy of weapons he would call them. He was fond of them surely.

 

 

†

 

In the summer stickiness of the early morning, two men shaped globules melted into chairs, a worn teapot squatted between them. They blocked me from my quarry – the tap – but I could not help but watch them, mushing my face between the wooden beams, straining to hear their low murmurs.  

​

One was my Da – at least I’m quite sure it was – he was bald, short, an ex-Essex lad turned rural Queenslander, all leathery skin and sharp teeth. He used to show me the golden ones at the back, Cost me a pretty penny those did.

​

The other was unknown to me. He reminded me of Elliot Smith – my Da’s favourite musician – before he got two stab wounds in his chest and died. He was shaggy, with skin that sagged off his eyes like over-brewed teabags. His eyes flicked around the room, and he held onto his teacup the way that possums hold onto apple slices you’ve cut for ‘em.

​

So why do you trying to steal my lead mate? My da asked.

​

Elliot didn’t reply to Da, his nails – all chipped – just went tap tap tap against the cup.  

​

Da had this way of talking that made other men nervous. He said he learnt it from a guy he met when he lived in the flats; Racket was his name, and he worked for the National Front. Da mentioned him rarely, it made his face all dark.

​

I ain’t going to ring no one alright, but we both know you ain’t meant to be here, but we don’t need pigs coming, Da sighed, I’ve got kids, man. Bloody kids! You can’t just—

​

My son, Elliot spoke as if he was choking, it’s his birthday soon, and my wife gave me the money ya know.

​

Got a son now?

​

Well, I—

​

Men didn’t cry. I knew this as empirical, hard, true fact – it was carved into my collagen. When the wetness left this man’s eye, I drew back, mouth agape.

​

Elliot morphed before my little eyes, I wanted to make more, ya know, for one of those serious Hot Wheels tracks with the engines and the like. So, I—I went down to the dog races and…well I was manic, man. I-It wasn’t me.

 

He was transformed, no longer a man but a desiccated husk, teeming with unknowable substances, flittering at the edges of femininity.

​

Well, we both know that’s shite mate. Sounds like you’ve got a bloody gambling problem on top of all the mental business…the fact that it was money for your son just made it all the more a rush.

​

You don’t know shit.

​

Da pulled himself from his chair and drained his tea, Maybe not. Right, come on. Come with me.

​

The two men disappeared with the shush of the sliding backdoor.

​

The man, Elliot, whispered, Is she here?

​

My Da did not respond, and I got my water.  

 

†

 

That summer, my sister and I would play with the neighbour kids. We lived on an estate across the road from sprawling manor houses. The owners spent their Saturdays atop growling thrones, snipping chessboards into the grass.

​

Their kids spilled from the iron gates, like birds from the tropics on the telly, with their cozzies so bright they’d hurt our eyes. We hopped along to bitumen hissing and spitting as our skin turned pink and our blisters burst, leaving the black grit slick. My sister, blonde hair gleaming under the glare of the sun would swear, Fuck! She was eight.

​

We’d keep going.

​

The river was small, we’d call it a river, but on reflection, it was a creek – a dried out little streamer of muddied water amongst the trees that reached into the sky with parched, broken fingers. Some unknown but ever thanked entity had tied a ratty rope onto a gnarled knuckle of the tallest eucalyptus.

​

I shot out over the water, floating for moments in the sunny laughter that bubbled from the banks, before I was encased in grey-green – a kind of weightlessness overtook me as my cozzie ballooned with water. I was a pufferfish.

​

I stayed under, holding my breath till my lungs burnt, staring at the rippling sunlight above, caught in the water of warped sea-glass. My hair fanned around me, kissing my shoulders and neck as I imagined myself in the Mariana Trench – dark and alone. The pressure would be too much for my body down there, and I would implode – a tiny girlish bang for no one to hear.  

​

When I was older, I went on a field trip led by a Park Ranger in the Blue Mountains. His lips were flaky, his nose was red, but he spoke with the firmness of a knowledgeable state librarian when he said, Them be Widow Makers. Stay out from under them.

​

Well.

​

Da ran with his fists, arms swinging like pistons at right angles when the branch broke.

​

There was a bloody mess in the mud. A bone stuck out of a ruby, fleshy frame – the ruin of the kid’s forearm. I didn’t know his name.

​

I don’t know how Da knew what had happened. I thought he might have had super-sonic hearing, cause the kid, he wasn’t screaming or nothing. The noise he made it was like a thoroughly beaten dog, snarling and whimpering.

​

We stood shaking as Da wrapped the kid up in his arms and carried him out of the creek. I saw a statue, years later, that reminded me of that moment called Pietà.

​

The ambulance screamed in the distance.

​

Dogs barked, and babies howled.

 

†

 

We lived on a main road in Sydney for a bit after, and Ma would look at the street with a frown at the passing lorries that coughed up cloying clouds. She’d grab us in her too-tight grip and bent over like a hook she’d whisper, Stay away from the road.

​

When she said it like that, with the threat, you’d stay off the damn road.

​

But Kitty used to spend most of her time on top of the fridge, watching the house with her eyes of nuclear yellow that, to my small child-reptile brain, could see through walls. She sometimes sat on my lap, vibrating like a lawnmower. She didn’t speak English.

​

When she became a bloodied pancake, early in the morning, Da in all his infinite wisdom had an attempt at putting her in the bin.

I caught him, and as if it were a crime he froze, Kitty’s stiff body in one hand, the other held the lid open. Kitty’s eyes were smoky in death, and her fur was matted.

​

My Da was in his boxers, Ma called them his Liberaces. He turned, closed the lid on the bin and rubbed his face. I had seen Peter Pan recently, the red handprint he left on his cheek reminded me of Tiger Lily, the princess.

​

We buried her under an orange tree instead.

​

He swore that the oranges were better for it.

 

†

​

Under the flashing (blue-purple-red) lights and the swell-sway of music, men with menthol breath on my neck will whisper, “Do you want to call me *****?”

​

I’ll think it’s funny – the display – sometimes I’ll laugh at them, my teeth flashing, sharp like Da’s. Could gouge a man’s eye out with gnashers like mine.

​

They’ll sit expansively, legs, arms, shoulders wide, with their suit jackets unbuttoned – Ted Baker or the like – and I’ll tap their chests just to hear the echo. I’ll take their jackets when they’re in the bathroom and run. I’ll spin in front of my mirror as if I’m Judy Garland singing Get Happy and the arms of the suit flap about like boneless wings. I’ll be a god.

 

†

​

When they found out, Ma’s face cracked, little spider silk worry lines crawled across her cheeks, cause this was for other people in documentaries on the ABC – late-night ones at that.

​

My aunt was similar – type one – but she wasn’t an aunt by blood. She had streamers on her cupboard, with tiny metal elephants that jangled as I walked past. I would play with them as she lay in bed, staring at the cracks in her wall. She wasn’t great company when I stayed with her.

​

They found me – in bed, curtains drawn, breath fetid – and their bodies cut the streaming light as they stood in the doorway. It had slipped into me, the wall stared back, time folded itself into a paper crane and back again, (then a lotus flower, then a butterfly, then a fish…) but the creases grew deeper with every pleat.

​

…like Samantha Fitzgerald from Neighbours? my sister asked.

​

Fucking hell he did this. That bastard, that was my Ma who said that. Her voice cracked, she sounded just like a boar who was about to cark it in the mouth of one of Da’s pigging dogs.

​

But Da sat on the bed, all soft-like, all the sharp corners melted as he laid a hand on my back, warm and heavy. My eyes stung something terrible.  

​

He didn’t do nothing. This is no one’s fault, he turned to me, Come on now. What’s with the face like a herbal remedy? Want a cup of tea?

 

†

The man, Elliot Smith, remember? He came back with a broken arm, smelling of eucalyptus and earth and iron. It was about two months after the teacup morning and about a month after Da brought Laurel and Hardy.

​

Elliot wore an Elvis Costello t-shirt, with a heard of elephants stomping across the fabric. There was a dog at his feet too – a little terrier mix – it didn’t bark, just whimpered when he tied it up outside with a lead made of ratty rope.

He moved about the house as if the roof was going to collapse in. His small, bony hands worried at his sternum, turning over and over.

​

He was crying, but there was a smile, a tiny thing, that sat on his face like it wasn’t used to the front-facing real estate. It shook and quivered.

​

I watched him from the stairs again, a man that I was sure was born of my imagination was now all fleshy. He looked about, raking in every corner of the house, and his eyes met mine through the banisters. They were yellow – nuclear, chemical, acid – yellow. I’d never seen a human like it, with eyes like that and he crawled up the stairs towards me. The carpet prickled at my sweat-slick palms.

​

How do, little one? He breathed, his teeth were a wee bit rotten, I could smell it on his breath. It was like a cat’s after they drag in a half-masticated rat, all proud of itself.

​

Look at ya girl. Our hairs be alike and all…I’m here to return a few bits and pieces to ya Da. Good man he is. Right proper man, he’s putting a brew on. Want to join us?

​

I nodded and followed this ghost into the kitchen. My Da was indeed making a brew, it was one of the times that you’d see him looking serene.

​

Two sugars right mate? Da asked, picking me up off the floor and sitting me on the bench.

​

Err yeah grand, Elliot said, he finally wiped his eyes, smearing the water across his cheeks. He rapped his knuckles against his chest, coughing – he sounded hollow.

​

Da clattered about, getting out the chipped teapot – used to be my grandma’s before she died. I swung my legs back and forward, my Mary Jane’s kicking into the cabinet with soft thuds. Elliot took an orange from the fruit bowl, peeled it with careful precision and passed me a section. I munched on the segment, letting the citrus burst across my tongue, and I thought of Kitty.

​

We drank of course, and they talked sparingly of things that I didn’t understand – carburettors, juvey, black dogs, ganja, lashings, spoons, copper wiring, the CSS – I sipped on my tea instead, feeling like a right lady from Upstairs Downstairs.

​

And my little miss here! Elliot was crowing now with his eyes of white and yellow flashing, What about it, huh?

I had missed the question, I was watching the birds outside the window pecking at the ground, pulling at worms like taffy.

​

Da whispered, He asked ya what you want to be when you’re older.

​

I want…I want to be an Olympian! joyful and free, I threw my hands in the air, and it rained Bushells tea. I went to kick the cupboards again, but my Da grabbed my ankle, stopping me.

 

†

 

There were three cups on the drying rack, all with soap scum on them – a Da job. I had watched Elliot give my Da some yellow and green notes before he left. Da declined them. They hugged; Elliot ruffled my hair.

​

Hope to see ya win gold. Elephant memory me, I won’t forget ya. Maybe I’ll see ya again if you come look for me when you’re eighteen and this big.

​

He put his finger against his temple with a gappy smile.  

​

And beat a hasty retreat.