Sliver Moon Bay: The Looking Page 4

  14

  The house goes quiet. The quiet doesn’t help any; I lie awake half the night, long after they’ve gone to bed. I’m thinking things are moving now, in the usual direction, way too fast. But I like it here. Cuckoo Island feels like home. It isn’t, but if we were to have a home, this would be it. The town, the harbour, the forest, our beach and us. We fit in here. I fit in here. As much as I am ever going to fit in anywhere. I’ve survived 1156 days here so far and that has to mean something.

  I liked Cuckoo Island right from the beginning. I counted elephants on the first ride through town and it took only two hundred and two elephants to get from one end of Main Street to the other; and at two hundred and three the houses disappeared and we were alone, on the deserted road, just the four of us in the truck, gliding along like ghosts. Lilian was very quiet, thoughtful and she kept looking at Chris like she wasn’t sure what he got us into. It’ll be alright, love, Chris kept saying, telling her all kinds of stuff, the usual, to keep her calm and not too anxious but I could tell that she was scared. We did not see a soul when we passed through town but it was early in the morning, way too early for anybody to be about, and Lilian understood this but still, I knew she would have preferred if she saw somebody, anybody, even just peeking out from behind their curtains. But the whole town was asleep and we came and went and nobody knew.

  One thousand and forty three elephants later the road stopped half way up this hill where the trees and bushes so far quite scattered banded together to make a forest which lasted for five hundred and twelve more elephants before the cleared track stopped, right in front of our new house. Chris parked the truck right there and we all just sat as we were, for a bit, gathering ourselves. I remember it like it was yesterday.

  So this is where, this is how. Where we’re going to live and how it’s going to be, I’m thinking. And it’s up to me to make the best of it.

  Chris gets out of the truck, takes a picture. Of us, sitting inside, looking through the windows. Lilian pulls a face. Starling breaks into a gummy smile. She looks adorable in her bunny outfit, strapped into her baby seat. I do nothing. It’s best if you ignore him; he’ll go away but he won’t stop. He takes pictures of everything to do with us. Houses we live in, places we visit, animals, birds, the landscape and vehicles that pass by, people we see. He’s good at taking pictures, has an eye for detail, especially when it comes to people. He snaps them, without them knowing. How’s that for sneaky?

  Chris puts his phone away. He’s walking up to the front door. So it’s time to go see our new home.

  From the outside, the house is not much. A barn in the woods. Painted green, with a low sloping gable roof and a stone porch. It has a chimney. So that’s something. Lilian’s looking like she’d rather not be here but I’m keeping an open mind. You never know, do you?

  We go inside. Inside’s rigged up like somebody’s houseboat. It’s dark and there’s scarred, chipped wood everywhere making up the floor, the walls, the furniture. The windows are small and have shutters. The ceiling is low, with exposed beams. The place feels claustrophobic. But. The living room has a fireplace. Full of soot so it probably works. The kitchen’s tiny, with a tiny window and a door facing the back yard. Somewhere behind those trees is the beach, Lilian tells me, trying to put a positive spin on this. Poor Lil’. Starting over, once again. And in a place like this. So I get into the spirit of the thing. It’s gonna be great here, Mum, I tell her. She nods, looking like she’s going to cry. Ah, well, you can only try your best, can’t you?

  We go see the three pokey bedrooms together. I get to pick one and I chose the room opposite Starling’s. It’s been our little nest, separated from Lilian and Chris’s by the kitchen and the bathroom on the one side and the living room on the other. There are twenty elephants between us so if we’re quiet, they won’t hear a thing. Course, I will be able to hear them cause they’re always loud, doing stuff in their bedroom, and arguing and talking, sometimes, like normal people do.

  We went to the kitchen to regroup. Chris made a pot of tea and we sat around the kitchen table drinking it out of these brand new mugs that we found in the cupboard, and Lilian began to thaw when she saw that everything she could possibly want in a house was already there and the kitchen had a new fridge and a new oven and even a set of brand new pans hanging off the range. She told Chris that he’d come good on his promise and the two of them kissed in front of me like they were still on their honeymoon. Course, they’d been married for a long time so you would think this sort of behaviour was past them but no. These two, when they were in the mood, could be embarrassing. So anyway, after they were done kissing we all went outside through the kitchen, to see the back yard, this patch of ground cleared of bushes and with no good grass, but I loved it straightaway cause behind the clearing everything looked pretty wild and definitely untamed, and you could hear the ocean quite clearly from our back steps. Even Lilian got excited, hearing the waves crashing below us. Of course, we were all set to go see the beach when Starling cut her knee crawling about on twigs and had a fit, and Lilian and Chris got busy with the situation. Ah, just as well.

  I set out on my own, down the narrow path, along the bushes, under the trees, counting. Two hundred elephants get me to the cliff hanging over Sliver Moon Bay. Underneath, the beach is lovely, curved like a sliver moon hemmed in by steep sand dunes at either end. It’s quiet here. There’s nobody around, just crabs and birds, and things floating about, in the grey, which shimmers like silk in the sunshine. Beyond the dunes, the ocean goes on forever. The beach smells good. It’s a glorious morning.

  I stood there watching the ocean, thinking it would always be that colour, but the truth is the ocean changes colours all the time, like a kaleidoscope. I know; I stood in that same spot every day for many years, and every day the ocean was different. But it always smelled the same.

  I went down the dune to the beach and walked the length of it in the wet sand. The birds didn’t seem to mind me. They went about their own business, without a care in the world. I sat down and watched them. Eventually it started to rain and I knew I had to get back to the house cause Lilian would worry about me getting a cold. The first climb up the dune was hard work. There’s a way to do it but this was my first time so it was hard going. I had to rest. That’s when I saw him. He appeared at the edge of the cliff above me, looked down, straight at me. I waved hello. He turned and disappeared up the path.

  That was 1156 days ago. We’re settled here now. Despite all that’s happened, despite Assassin, despite White Sox whom I’m really going to miss, this is where we’re staying.

  15

  In the morning, we go about our usual. Chris goes out fishing and Lilian does a spot of housework. She folds laundry in the living room, watching morning television. It’s Sunday so it’s just me and Starling for the day. I take Starling out in the front yard to pick up some pebbles. She likes to count them. I notice the front door has been cleaned. It’s so clean it shines, especially around the spot where the arrow went into the wood. It’s been filled in and sanded to blend in with the grain so you don’t see where it went in. But I know it was there. Holding up White Sox by the throat. Poor kitty. It feels nothing now, at the bottom of the garbage bin.

  ‘Sarah? Sarah-honey, have you seen Starling’s pink dress?’ Lilian pokes her head out of the window.

  I haven’t. I shake my head, shrug. Then Starling looks up from her pebbles.

  ‘Pink. I want pink dress.’

  But she’s talking to herself. Lilian’s gone. She made her puzzled grimace and pulled her head back in. She’ll go look in the laundry basket again. I know she will. She’s been doing that all week, we all have. Looked in all the usual nooks and crannies but the dress is nowhere to be found. Maybe it’s time to give up and get a new one, I tell Lilian but she’s determined to get to the bottom of this mystery. She’s joking about it but I can see she’s holding out hope the thing will surface, somehow. And perhaps it will. In its own good time
.

  Later, Starling falls asleep in the tent we made in the back yard. I draped a blanket over the picnic table and Starling dragged couch cushions under it. Now she’s sleeping in her nest, with a thumb in her mouth, clutching Sleepy Bear swaddled like a baby, in her sleeping bag. I lie next to her, thinking, about my dream. Fairy came to see me last night. She put her little girl down on the floor next to a big box full of beautiful glass things. She took one out. Look, Emily-darling, this one’s yours. It was a bird. Made of sugar. Emily was excited; she clapped her hands. She wanted to hold the bird but Fairy hung it on the fir tree. It looked lovely. It came to life and made a noise. It stepped on a twig and broke it.

  I woke up to see the back of Lilian disappearing down the path. I knew immediately that something wasn’t right. She never goes to the beach. So she’s going over to see old Drake. This can’t be a good thing. Lilian’s upset. And she’s not strong. So I’m gonna have to get involved.

  At old Drake’s, everything’s quiet. It’s easy to sneak up to the house without Assassin there. Physically, that is. He’s definitely here in spirit. In his grave, rising from the puckered ground under the weeping willow like a great big pustule. RIP Assassin. It was a good idea to honour him with a resting place. Respectful. And that’s what we should have done with White Sox. We should have put White Sox in a box in the ground under a tree. RIP White Sox. But that sort of thinking takes imagination and Chris is not a chip off the old block at all. No respect for the dead, has he?

  The front door squeaked. I dove into the tall grass where she wouldn’t see me. Turned out I didn’t have to worry. She wouldn’t have seen me if I had stood in the doorway. She flew out of the cabin like Fairy, clutching a bunch of photographs close to her chest, and she ran down the path towards the beach. Oh, Lilian. What are you going to do about anything?

  Well, of course, she’ll tell me later. I really should have just gone home right then but it wasn’t meant to be. She had dropped a picture and I picked it up. It was a picture of me. On the beach, flying, flapping my imaginary wings. So now she knows what he’s been up to.

  The door is ajar and the house is quiet. The room looks exactly like the last time I was here. Pristine. Not a thing out of place. The crossbow hangs from a hook on the wall above the fireplace. The owl cookie jar sits on the mantelpiece. Really, he should be more careful about such things. But I’m going to take a look, now that I’m here. I lift the top of the owl’s head and look inside the jar. Yes, there are photographs at the bottom. It’s the same stuff, except we’re older. I flip through some, just randomly, winter, spring— how the time flies. Ah, here’s summer. Hey, I never realized how deep my tan was last summer; no wonder I peeled a couple of times. Starling looks so cute in this one, nudie on the beach, with her bucket and spade. She’s grown since then. Not much, but she’s definitely longer. Well, that’s good news. Here’s a real nice one of me, in my white bikini, wading in. Starling’s in up to her thighs but she won’t go in any further. The surf is up. She’s such a cautious little birdie. She’ll just dip her beak in every now and then, but she won’t go under. He should know this by now but he’s not learning. He’s got stacks here, of her, same pose, same situation. Such waste. He should know better, seriously; God knows he watches us often enough.

  Footsteps outside, on the back porch. I put the pictures back and close the lid. The back door handle rattles. I tiptoe across to the bedroom, over to the bed, and slide under it. The back door squeaks open. I see his boots shuffle over the faded tiles; come to a standstill in the middle of the kitchen. Another pair of boots enters. Now they’re both in here. And I’m gonna learn something new.

  The boots are facing each other off. Chris has his steel caps on. Drake doesn’t. I see how this is going to pan out. There will be blood. But first.

  ‘Look at this, dad. You know where I found it? — Look at it, man!’

  ‘Calm down, son. This has nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Doesn’t it? You know where I found it.’

  ‘No. I really don’t so why don’t you tell me.’

  ‘In your shed. In. Your. Shed. This. How do you explain it?’

  ‘I don’t have to explain anything to you, son. I didn’t steal this or anything else from you, which is more than can be said about you.’

  ‘Don’t go there, man. This shit here is what we’re talking about. Are you telling me that you didn’t take this and hide it in your shed?’

  ‘That’s what I’m saying, yes.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘I don’t care. I know where you’re going with this and you’re way off, Chris. Way off. Let me ask you something, son. What were you doing in my shed?’

  Chris makes a sound, an impatient sound, the sound he makes when he’s telling you that you’re talking shit, that you’re skirting around the important issues and basically wasting his time. I know he’ll not answer old Drake.

  Old Drake gets it, after three elephants’ worth.

  ‘I think we’re done here, son. Go home and take this thing with you. I don’t want it around.’

  ‘I can’t take this home. Look at it!’

  The boots are tapping a little jig now. Some bodies are nervous. Don’t know about Drake but it’s always a good sign, to see Chris tapping. Still, this isn’t going how I thought it might. A lot of useless time is passing passively by. Why aren’t they fighting? Chris should be beating old Drakey into a pulp. Instead, they’re talking. Continuing to talk.

  ‘Don’t do anything stupid, son. This has nothing to do with me. You need to look elsewhere to find answers.’

  Chris’s boots are dancing up a storm. Oh goodie, he’s rearing to go.

  ‘I’m warning you, man. I know I owe you but this is too much. I’ll see you near my place, my kids again, I will kill you.’

  Chris turns and walks, across the living room, right in my line of vision, towards the front door. His boots are angry. They stomp across the floor, making it groan. But now he’s out the door and the boots can vent their anger on something out there. RIP Assassin. The fool. This can’t have a good ending.

  16

  The old man hung about in the kitchen for a bit and then he left out the back door, shuffled off grunting, back to the shed, back to his dope. I bolted home right after. Starling was still asleep and Lilian and Chris nowhere in the house. Just as well.

  Lilian returns, eventually. She’s hiding her pictures somewhere on her person. Probably behind the bunch of flowers she’s picked along the path, on the beach. She tells me she had a lovely walk but I can see she’s nervous. She goes inside and calls Chris. I’m not hearing a word but I can imagine, I know, what she’s going on about. You’ve got to do something, Chris! He’s been spying on our children. Taking photographs. Of the girls, when they’re alone, playing on the beach. WHAT — THE — FUCK — FOR? I see her mouthing it from here. She, of course, is hiding in the kitchen, smoking a fag and pacing up and down, looking out the window, surreptitiously, on the brink of a momentous decision. It’s a bad movie she’s in. I’ll bet my life she’s thinking about doing something stupid, something Chris and her will regret later. Ah, well, at least she knows what she’s doing, for once. She’s feeling it, for sure. The sense of deja vu must be overwhelming. Yes, she’s been in this moment before and now it’s happening again. But she has a hero and he’ll sort everything out. He thinks. She hopes. I know.

  17

  She slaps the photographs on the table.

  ‘Take a look at this! This is how your father spends his time!’

  He’s looking at them but he’s not pleased with the tone of her voice, I imagine. I’m shut up in my room, as usual, when this sort of thing goes on, late at night.

  ‘I’ll talk to him. Tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow might be too late. You want to wait until he’s noticed that some of these have disappeared? You want to give him time to get rid of the rest? What if he hides them somewhere? Tomorrow you might not be able to prove anyt
hing.’

  She’s looking at him accusingly, I’ll bet. Challenging him cause she’s a mummy tiger today.

  ‘Do something, for Christ’s sakes! We can’t allow him to continue with this! Don’t you want to know why he’s doing it?’

  He’s looking at her, seriously studying her as if to decide how to handle her, in this very delicate situation.

  ‘Okay. I’ll deal with it now. Go to bed, Lilian.’

  He gathers the pictures, I imagine, locks them into his desk drawer. He’s putting his boots on. Next, he’ll get a knife from the shed, the big one he takes with him when he goes fishing, and he’ll set off to see the old man.

  Well, that’s how I figured the conversation might have gone; I really don’t know cause I slept through it. It had been a trying evening long before this took place.

  It started early when Starling had a fit at dinner. She wanted her pink dress. Lilian had no answers so Starling played her a tune. Chris blamed Lilian. Said she was a sloppy housekeeper, didn’t know where her head was half the time. He was right of course but he shouldn’t have said anything. Anyway, Lilian took Starling and put her to bed. I had to clean up the kitchen. Chris went outside to think. He smoked the old man’s dope and watched the Moon rise until it sat like a big fat cotton ball on the top of the trees. I saw it through the kitchen window and wished I was down at the beach. If I were lucky, it might have fallen on me.

  Later on, they talked about the old man in the kitchen after I went to bed. I heard them despite the elephants between us cause they didn’t keep their voices down. Lilian was drinking and Chris smoked, inside, so they were pretty upset about everything that’s happened. Chris thought the old dude was going off the rails, for real this time, and they conspired against him and planned something stupid that would teach him. To take pictures of little girls. To kill little girls’ pets. To—I don’t know what. But this can’t happen, whatever it is they’re planning. I don’t want to move from this house, leave the beach or Cuckoo Island. I can do what I want here. Even school’s bearable here. So I’m gonna have to get involved.