Sliver Moon Bay: The Looking Read online

  ‘Can we speak privately?’ he’s looking at Chris, just Chris.

  Chris looks at me. Lilian looks at me. I know what that means. I pick up Starling and we go into her room, to play behind closed doors.

  But there’s no escaping the conversation. It gets pretty heated, straight up, when Chris blurts out: if it’s about the dope, you’re wrong. I didn’t do it. I didn’t. Do it. I don’t take your stupid dope, I’ve told you that. And now get out. Then old Drake blurts out about me sleeping on the beach and Starling playing in the surf. Chris is fuming, Lilian’s confused. What do you mean she’s been sleeping on the beach? She’s very good with her… Are you sure?… Sarah’s very responsible. Chris, don’t. Please. She’s such a good girl, whines Lilian, like a scared little puppy. She’s probably peed herself, by now.

  But Chris has grasped it. I feel his anger. It comes poring at me, from under the door, grabbing at my feet. It wants to drown me, seep into my bones, like cancer. I imagine.

  I imagine he’ll be at the door any second. But I’m not scared. He won’t do a thing. Can’t risk it cause we both know what we know.

  Old Drake out there’s thinking along the same lines.

  ‘You can’t blame the kid,’ says old Drake. ‘She’s only young.’

  ‘Get out of my way, dad,’ says Chris. ‘You can leave now.’

  ‘Listen, son. Starling is your responsibility. Yours and hers.’

  At this point I imagine he’s looking at Lilian, pointing even, his crooked gnarly finger at her, accusing her. Lilian, I know, is crying. And I don’t even hear her. I just know.

  ‘Stay out of this, old man, I’m warning you,’ Chris has lowered his voice, in volume, tone and pitch. But I can hear him clear as day so he must be closer to Starling’s room and closer to the old man. They’re breathing into each other faces by now, I imagine.

  ‘No, son. I’m warning you. And you, girlie. You are both on notice. Either you do a better job around here or I’ll report you. Do you understand me?’

  One elephant, two elephant—Chris is just about to disappear into the old man’s nostrils. He’s going to explode.—Three elephant, four—

  ‘Chris! Don’t!’ Lilian’s screaming and this whole thing suddenly gets real, like a proper nightmare. Even Starling freezes.

  Next door, they’re fighting. Old Drake and Chris are dragging their bodies around, locked in together, lurching about, busting up things. Lilian’s screaming. It doesn’t help. It goes on for a bit, like a skit in a silent movie. Only the piano’s missing. Then finally the door slams and we have silence.

  Later, when Lilian and Chris have stopped arguing, Chris comes in to let us out of the room. Starling’s in bed, snoring. I’ve cuddled up with her, and now I’m pretending to be asleep. I don’t want to deal with him. He stands there, looking at us. Somewhere in the house, Lilian’s sobbing. Still. So she won’t hear a thing cause she’s too busy hearing herself.

  He comes forward, leans over me to reach Starling. His hair brushes my cheek. It tickles. Of course, I don’t move. I’m a lady crocodile sunning herself in the middle of a hot afternoon. He kisses Starling. He hovers. I know he’s thinking about me, but I’m not scared. We’ve been here before. I know how to handle this. As long as you believe you’re asleep, you’re asleep. And you will win.

  It works. Chris stops hovering. I’m expecting he’ll slither away now, the way he always does, but he doesn’t. The door doesn’t shut behind him. Instead, the foot of the bed sags, on Starling’s side. He’s sat down. I open my eyes a little. I see him now, his rounded back facing me, his head tilted forward and his right knee up, foot resting on the bed. He’s rolled up his jeans and is inspecting his ankle. He shifts a little; I see him touching it, grimacing, wincing and baring his teeth in pain. He shifts to make his foot more stable. I see that he has a large, blood soaked band aid stuck to his ankle. He peels it off. I see the wound, I realize what’s going on. Assassin bit him.

  9

  I don’t see Chris in the morning. He’s gone out somewhere, early. Just as well.

  Lilian, Starling and I have breakfast together. Lilian’s really nice to me. She broaches the subject, pleads with me to be more careful when we’re playing at the beach. I promise her that I will take better care. I mean it; I really don’t want a repeat of yesterday. Then she promises to spend more time with Starling, regularly, starting today. So I get to go to school.

  Lilian drops me off down the road, at the fork where the bus comes to take me to school. The bus comes, I get on and Lilian and Starling stand by, waving. Starling’s licking her lollipop. There’s still a good deal left and she’s really enjoying it.

  At school, I imagine what those two are doing. I’m hoping Lilian’s not letting Starling watch her fairy movie too many times. She might be though cause it’s raining and they’ll be stuck at home. And there’s no play dough today. I’ve not made any. I don’t think Lilian knows how to make it so she’ll have to make do with crayons. She can always get Starling to draw. Except Starling likes to eat them. Then she gets a tummy ache.

  The morning goes by quickly. We have a gym session inside because of the rain. I hate gym but it went off alright until we played a game where you have to pick a partner. I’ve never liked to play them partnering games cause it gets a bit awkward when I’m left standing alone. The gym teacher stands beside me looking silly. I haven’t been to the gym for so long that the silly bitch forgot how it goes for me. But I didn’t get angry. I’ve stopped doing that a long time ago. So now the silly bitch is my partner for a team building game of dodgeball. She’s feeling so much guilt about my situation that she seriously puts in a lot of effort and we eliminate all competition in a very short time. We stand there victorious and the class is stunned by this. They’re all out. Then somebody makes a funny face and everyone laughs. The poor bitch thinks they’re laughing at me but they’re laughing at her. She looked mighty funny moving her three hundred pound behind, this mountain of jelly stuffed in her gym pants, with such energy, and now she’s standing there breathing heavily, jelly shaking, sweat dripping down her massive doughy forearms. She’s a sight to behold. From the waist up she’s just an ugly fat girl but from below her waist she looks like a wobbly slug collapsed in a plastic bag. That’s what everyone was thinking. They even talked about it later, over lunch. I didn’t get involved. Wasn’t asked to, anyway, and didn’t agree with what they said either. To me the silly bitch looked like a mermaid. They’re not all beautiful. Not like fairies.

  That reminds me. I hope Lilian is coping with Starling. She’s not always easy to feed. Lunchtime can be a fun place at ours if Starling chooses to throw a fit. Who knows what’s going on at home when Lilian’s in charge? I wish I were there.

  The afternoon passed, eventually, though it didn’t pan out like I planned, with me cruising on the side line undetected, but it wasn’t all bad. I might have learned something even. Cause I did pay attention some of the time.

  The bus drops me off at the fork. Lilian’s not there so I walk home on my own. I don’t mind; I’m thinking Starling’s having a lie down. They both might be. But when I get home, things are not great. Lilian is very upset. She doesn’t want to tell me what’s wrong. She locks herself in her room without a word and I gather that the day has been exhausting.

  So I ask Starling. She’s busy at her little desk, drawing a big mess on it, with a fat blue crayon. It’s down to a stub.

  ‘Doggie dead,’ she says, pressing the stub into a crack in the wood. It crumbles under the pressure. Starling looks up and smiles a blue smile at me. ‘Dead. Dead. Dead. Doggie dead.’

  But she doesn’t know what dead means. Dead is sleeping. So she has learned something today too.

  10

  ‘He’s found the dog in the shed. He says it was poisoned. He thinks it was you!’

  Lilian’s crying. It’s midnight and they’re at it again. Second night in a row.

  ‘It wasn’t me, Lilian. Stop crying.’

 
Chris sounds surprisingly flat. He’s very calm. He must be tired. He’s using his ‘inside’ voice. Then he said something else but he was speaking too low so I had to get up and tiptoe to the door just to hear him. But it’s Lilian who speaks next.

  ‘Where were you all day?’

  ‘Seriously, Lilian? You playing detective now?’

  ‘I called the trawler. Ralph said you weren’t there.’

  ‘Oh, you asked the junkie. Well done, Lilian. Good work.’

  ‘Drake said you stole his dope yesterday. He said Assassin chased you. Is that true?’

  ‘I’m going to bed, Lilian. I’m tired.’

  ‘Did you kill the dog?’

  ‘No. I didn’t kill the stupid dog. And I’m done with this now, Lilian. I’m going. To bed.’

  The door to their bedroom closes. Lilian’s standing alone, in the living room. She starts pacing the room, murmuring to herself, something. I can only imagine what. But I don’t want to go there so I’m counting elephants to see how long the self-comforting goes on for, this time. Twenty elephants and then the television comes on, just quietly. We’re all good then. Lilian’s going to stay up tonight.

  I go back to bed. I’m gonna need my energy tomorrow.

  11

  Tomorrow came and went and nobody noticed. I stayed home from school to look after Starling. Chris went to work, Lilian went. Somewhere. She didn’t say where but when she returned in the afternoon, she brought some sunshine back with her. She was in a good mood for the rest of the day, even after Chris came home. Then the next day and the one after, I went to school. Nothing happened. Just the normal, boring stuff. Stuff I like. But it doesn’t last and here we are, getting ready to live a new day.

  A lot more birds out and about today. I see them from our back garden; they’re circling, crying, arguing on the beach. I wonder what’s turned up. A sea turtle perhaps, resigned to rotting on the beach, like the last time this happened. But when we get there, nothing out of the ordinary is happening on the beach. Just some agitated birds, that’s all. Ah, well. Starling gets busy with her sandcastle. She’s got a new bucket and a digger that Chris got her in town yesterday. So she’s up for a big session.

  I don’t fall asleep this time though I am tired. It’s Saturday morning and I’m always tired on Saturdays cause I get to stay up on Fridays, to watch a movie with Lilian. Chris disappears into the shed right after dinner, and after Starling’s in bed it’s just me and Lil’, and we watch a late night movie, the kind not suitable for children, but on Friday nights I’m not a child. Lilian loves to watch love stories, romance and all kinds of girlie movies and she wants me there curled up by her side. Cause that’s what us girls should be doing. Well, it’s not like I have a lot of choice. Course, I sit there watching. It gets excruciating pretty quick. For me, not for her. She’s in, all in, sniffling through the soppy bits lapping it up, wishing she were the girl in the movie. Failing that, she just wants to be elsewhere, anywhere where there’s a man to notice her. It’s Chris’s fault she’s like this. He should be paying her more attention; any fool can see that, even a fourteen- year-old like me. He should be joining in but it’s me sitting here, watching things that don’t involve me now—and won’t for some time, says Lilian and she laughs, she’s somewhat embarrassed, the poor thing, perhaps wondering if I should be viewing this at all. But she’s wrong in thinking those things will interest me when I’m older. They won’t. All this, this kissy-kissy huggie-huggie kind of stuff is not for me. Or Chris, apparently, as we’re about to find out. He’s snuck out of the shed, and has been standing in the doorway, watching.

  He stands in the doorway, watching this situation; the film, Lilian clutching her hankie, sniffling, and me cuddling up close with my arm around her. He shakes his head, passes judgment, on the way to the kitchen to get himself a glass of water—it’s foolish, mindless stuff and only foolish, frustrated women can stand watching it. For once, I agree with him. It is foolish and Lilian should not be crying. But the hero dude has died just now and the heroine has fainted and Lilian takes it all to heart. She’s a fan of true love. Oh, dear. I think it’s time we all went to bed.

  And in the morning, Starling’s up extra early. She’s got her new bucket and her digger ready so getting her to the beach promptly is the least of what is expected of me, today. We’re going to build a biiiiig sandcastle today.

  And so we’re doing it; digging and piling up mountains of sand amongst the noisy birds. Starling doesn’t mind. She likes lots of noise. It’s fun. But all of a sudden the birds fly off and everything’s quiet. In the quiet, the surf becomes loud. The tide’s spilling, in and out, along the sand, swishing closer and closer, in regular intervals. It’s making me sleepy. And it reminds me. Are we being watched today? No, I don’t think so. He’s probably home, depressed. Sad, about the dog. It’s weird thinking about Assassin dead. He was a nice dog. He liked me. And Starling. Couldn’t stand Chris. Yes. He was a nice dog.

  At any rate, old Drake’s not here right now. I don’t see him. No cigarette smoke wafting down the dune. Or maybe I’m wrong. The wind’s turned so I wouldn’t be able to smell him if he’s here. So he could be hiding up there in the dune, lurking above us, somewhere in the bushes, burrowed in the sand like a giant mole rat. But one that sees real well. Of course, he could be in his garden, spying from there. But I don’t think so. I really suspect he has other things on his mind.

  Into all this, a scream explodes, tearing the very air it fills. The scream lasts a good while, cartwheeling down the dune towards us like massive tumbleweed. It stops everyone in their tracks. Even the birds are falling from the sky.

  Starling looks up at me from her sandcastle.

  ‘Mummy,’ she says, points up the dune. ‘Mummy calling.’

  ‘Yes, it is Mummy calling. We’d better go home, darling.’

  I pick her up and we amble up the dune as fast as we can. Mummy calling, Starling repeats, one, two, three times. Then we’re pedalling up the path. We crush twigs and roll over stones and Starling’s bouncing in the basket like a rag doll, looks like one with her oversized helmet head lolling about. But I can’t slow down. The echo of that scream won’t let me. It keeps screaming in my head. Outwardly, everything is quiet. So quiet I hear my own heart beating the shit out of my breath. My heart and my breath are fighting each other. They’re making me angry cause they should be working as a team. To spite them, I fly along the path. I’m scared. But at least I’m not alone. His breath is here too, labouring somewhere close. So I was wrong. He has been watching us, after all.

  12

  Chris gets there first. Old Drake second. One after another, the men come out of the bushes, flying towards Lilian. By the time I get Starling extracted from her basket, they’re hovering over Lilian slumped on the steps of the back porch. Chris is holding her in his arms. Old Drake disappears inside the house.

  ‘What’s going on? What’s happened?’

  Chris looks at me, looks at Starling. Lilian’s crying.

  ‘Stay out here,’ he says, nods towards Starling, towards Lilian. He’s getting up, giving up his seat for me.

  I take over. Chris disappears inside the house. He’s walking through to the front door. He opens it and slams it shut behind him.

  ‘What’s happening, Mum?’

  Lilian bursts into tears, full on.

  ‘It’s White Sox,’ she sobs, oblivious even of Starling who’s standing there with her helmet on, reflecting sunrays with her oversized headgear, and looking puzzled. An insane thought pops into my head and for a moment I imagine Starling is a visitor to this world. She looks like an alien meeting new species for the first time, craning her massive head to see it better. It’s how you’d imagine it goes down.

  ‘What about White Sox?’ I say, taking Starling’s helmet off. She throws herself at Lilian, burrows into her shoulder.

  THE. CAT. IS. DEAD. Lilian mouths to me soundlessly over Starling’s head.

  ‘How?’

  K
ILLED. BY. AN. ARROW.

  Inside, new noises erupt.

  ‘You going to deny it, dad? It’s your arrow, man! What were you thinking?

  Old Drake mutters something intelligible. But I have to know.

  I get to the front door just as Chris smacks old Drake in the face with White Sox. The cat is dead alright. It’s bled out. The front door is stained with its blood and there’s a puddle of it pooled on the threshold. It’s confronting. It’s —

  Old Drake staggers backwards.

  ‘You’re sick, son. You need help.’ He takes himself off, limping down the path, in the wrong direction, quite away from his property. He disappears round the bend and soon the sound of him is gone too.

  ‘Don’t tell Mum you saw this.’ Chris turns away from me and walks away, White Sox hanging limply from his hand like a thin piece of string, trailing its tail on the ground, all the way to the garbage bin.

  I couldn’t stand to see any more. I ran inside and slammed the door but I heard him anyway. He takes the lid off the bin and throws White Sox in there. The bin is empty cause White Sox hits the bottom and I can hear it. I hear it. Kitty dead, Starling will say.

  13

  ‘Are you crazy, Lilian? We can’t report this!’

  She mutters something. I can’t hear what cause she’s whispering and there’s a whole lot of elephants between me and their closed bedroom door. But Chris is shouting.

  ‘No, Lilian! Don’t interfere! I’ll deal with it in my own way!’

  —

  ‘You will do no such thing! Do you understand?’

  —

  ‘I’m telling you I’ll deal with him! Now leave it alone!’