Sliver Moon Bay: The Looking Read online

  ‘Lil’…

  ‘No. She’s not in the water—This is all your fault, Chris! I hate you! I HATE you!’

  Her voice is rising, from a nothing whisper to thunder whisper. Our Lilian’s finally coming into her own; like that bird, that Phoenix who overcame his own death. And she’s getting stronger.

  ‘You brought us here! If it weren’t for you…’

  Lilian is gathering pace. She’s roaring. ‘I HATE YOU!’

  Oh, Lord. Where are you when I need you? —Exactly. I’m going to have to hear this.

  ‘You said, you PROMISED we we’re going to be safe, SAFE, here! And now my child is gone! Our child is gone! Because of YOU!’

  Yes, her child is gone because of him. So finally we’re getting to the truth. But Chris is silent. For a bit. He takes a few breaths, seven elephants’ worth, and then he sobs. The man sobs, for Christ’s sakes.

  29

  It’s been three weeks. The only news is that they’ve figured out the fire started in the kitchen. In the wood stove with the faulty latch. The log left in there to die fell out on the floor and rolled to the kitchen cupboard where it stopped. The log still had some life in it and it set the cupboard on fire.

  Well, it is what it is. It’s grim. Depressing. For all of us. Course, we’d rather have had the fire started outside. We could have gone on believing somebody other than Chris and Lilian was responsible. I think it’s more Chris’s fault. Lilian had mentioned her concerns. She found it difficult to close the stove door. She wanted the latch fixed. But Chris could never find the time. He was always too busy with his bullshit, whatever that was, at the time. So he fobbed her off. Told her the latch was brand new and it only needed time to ‘settle’, told her the kitchen had been made over before we moved in. And who made it over? —Exactly. Another thing you can hate Drake for. But I don’t hate him. Lilian does. She imagines all sorts of torturous scenarios in her vacuous head. All I can do is cry with her, on occasion. Cause it is fucking sad what she’s going through. She’s a mother of a missing child. It hurts. I am the sister of a missing child. I know.

  Chris goes back to work. The weather’s shit and they need extra hands on the trawler so Chris goes. He seems relieved, rejuvenated even, by the possibilities this move offers. He might get swept overboard. He might even jump cause he has a death wish. We all do. But we go about it in different ways. Lilian drinks. Takes her magic pills at the same time. Chris drives around like mental. He’s bound to run himself into a ditch. Or a tree. Whichever comes first. And that will just leave me. Or not. I’m doing my best not to be left behind. So I dream. One day this too might kill me. And so what? —Exactly.

  Detective Martin comes by before Chris leaves. Questions his past. Relationship with Drake. His present. Relationship with Lilian. And me. He’s noticed I call my parents by their Christian names. He’s reading into it, citing family dysfunction. Chris pretty much tells him to fuck off. He has one child left and he’s fighting to keep that one. Alive. So why don’t you fuck off, detective?

  Detective Martin fucks off. He leaves us with a warning not to leave town.

  Seriously, dude? Our little birdie hasn’t been found and we’re leaving here? Seriously, why don’t you fuck off, detective?

  I’m proud of Chris, completely proud and completely surprised. Yeah, Dad’s right. It is high time Detective Martin fucked off cause he has been fuck all useful with his expert ideas on locating missing children.

  The scene has been refreshing. Chris hugs Lilian, Lilian hugs me, Chris, Lilian and me hug each other in the space between the kitchen table and their bedroom partition. It’s a tight fit. We’re crying, obviously, about Starling and where we’re at, but a huge weight has just been lifted off of our shoulders. We know it’s up to us to find her. Together and separately. We’ll do our bit. Fuck ‘em.

  Chris hugs us, kisses us, leaves. So it’s just me and Lilian for the rest of the week.

  We spend it spending time, looking out, for Starling, for each other. We decide that Starling is definitely not on the beach. There’s no proof she ever came down this way, no traces of her, except for Sleepy Bear and that’s only because Drake put it there, decides Lilian. She’s convinced me. I never thought Starling came down to the beach. She’d never. She’d never have found it at night, we reason, though the fire was pretty big. And the Moon was up. The beach, just an elephant herd down the path. But still. She’d never. So that’s that.

  We decide to move on from the beach. Tomorrow we’ll go over the dunes. The shrubs next. The bushes, the trees, all of that, behind our yard, and Drake’s, and where the little birdies feed the cuckoo, there as well cause Starling liked to look at them. Every day we’ll go, do a comb through, thoroughly, bit by bit. And we will find her.

  30

  Detective Martin is not taking us seriously. He’s back, twenty-four hours after Chris leaves, with a specially trained cadaver dog and his handler. Just arrived, from the big city. Okay, I do get a little excited. Apprehensive. What if, hey? What if they do find her and it’s too much? For me, for Lilian; especially for Lilian. And I’m not even thinking about Chris. Why even go there? —Exactly.

  He calls at the end of the day. Lilian tells him about the dog, the handler, the no progress.

  There’s a silence on Chris’s end. One elephant, two elephant—Chris gets himself together. Ah well, it is what it is, Chris sighs. Gathers his wits about him. We have to stop relying on other people. They don’t know us. They don’t know anything about us, Chris tells Lilian, reassuring her. She’s got him on speaker, and now she tells him that.

  ‘You’re on speaker, Chris,’ she says, with a side glance at me.

  Okay, Lilian, I get it. Chris should be aware that I am in the room.

  ‘Hi, Chris!’

  ‘Hi, Sarah. How are you feeling, honey?’

  ‘I’m okay. They haven’t found anything.’

  ‘I know. It’s gonna be okay, honey. I’ll be home soon.’

  ‘Okay. Stay safe.’

  ‘I will. You too. Look after Mum.’

  ‘Okay. I will.’

  Click. He’s off the grid, again. Lilian shrugs, gives me a smile. Wow! It’s only a little one but it’s something. And that’s not all the good news. Lilian suggests that we watch a movie tonight. Not a romance. Something I want. Okay, then. I choose an adventure. It turns out good. A couple of friends climb a real high, snow covered mountain and one of them falls into a deep crack and breaks his leg and then he climbs out, against all odds, and makes it back down, catches up with his friend and all ends well. It’s a really good film. We both like it. Afterwards, we curl up in Lilian’s bed. For once, I’m not asking Fairy to come. She can have the night off. So can Starling.

  31

  Of course, the good times don’t last. The next day, the cadaver dog is back, sniffing about the other side of ours and Drake’s properties. It’s not pleasant. It’s obvious that the mood has shifted. Okay, I get it. They’re covering all bases, exploring all possibilities. But it’s not helpful. Lilian’s upped her medication. She’s gone back to happy pills, straight after breakfast. So she doesn’t hear the dog, the handler, the whole fucking sad deal going on around us. I keep the door to the caravan shut, the blinds down. I don’t want to see these people, or the dog. At the end of the day, they’ve gone. They won’t be back. Not here, anyway. Meanwhile, the dog is needed elsewhere. Seriously? That dog is needed somewhere else? What could possibly top this assignment? —Exactly.

  Well, it’s just another cog in the wheel, isn’t it? We have started watching the news again, now that everyone’s attention is officially SOMEWHERE ELSE. After all, it has been almost a month. We shouldn’t be expecting anything now. It’s not been said, out loud, of course. But it’s there. Everywhere you have to go. Cause, obviously, you have to go places. Shops, school, fill up the motorbike. You don’t want to but you have to drag yourself about out there, just to survive. And you see it. In the looks, in the manner of. They’re telli
ng you: You gotta understand. Things happen. Life goes on. Even here. That’s what people are saying.

  So I’m watching the news. But I’m not learning anything new. Same shit’s gone down around the world while ours stopped. Go figure.

  32

  That night I dreamt about Starling. She was still inside Lilian but she was already smiling at me. I’m coming, Salah, leady or not! Of course, I was ready. Lilian, on the other hand, was taken by surprise. Anyway, it was all quick and it went well. I came home from school and there she was, in the bed, next to Lilian and a nurse was with them checking her over, cause Lilian had given birth at home, very quickly and totally unexpectedly as she was still two weeks off her due date. Here’s your little sister, darling, Lilian said, and I got to hold her for the first time. I told Lilian that she was the most beautiful baby in the whole wide world and I meant every word. The baby was beautiful. She opened her eyes and I swear she looked at me like she knew who I was, and she had the most soulful expression.

  I got to name her. Lilian told me they, her and Chris, really wished for me to pick her name and even though I knew it was only Lilian’s idea—I heard them arguing about it in their room one night and Chris wasn’t on board at all—I was really pleased. I knew Lilian really had to fight for me cause Chris argued that he alone had the right to name this child cause Lilian had named me and this was his last chance as they were hardly likely to have any more. But Lilian pleaded with him, explaining that it would be good for all of us because if I chose the baby’s name, I would bond with her, and so he relented. So I got to name the baby, and I named her Starling. Lilian fell in love with it straightaway, and even Chris liked it even though he had wanted to name our little girl Barbara. Lilian got quite upset when he first mentioned it and she asked him why such an ugly name should be given to the most beautiful baby in the world but Chris didn’t have a proper answer; he just said he liked it. We didn’t believe him; we suspected there must have been something to it as nobody in their right mind would name their baby daughter who was such a darling, such a bright shining star, Barbara. But we let it slide. We had our Starling.

  A month later, Lilian went back to work. She had to cause Chris wasn’t getting that many shifts at the spoon factory and we couldn’t keep up with the rent and the bills so Lilian really had no choice. She went back to the salon part-time, helping out with the sweeping, the coffee and the phone. She did well there; she was good with customers and had such a gentle touch that soon she was washing hair and giving head massages before the real hairdressers took over. The first few months worked out all right cause they, Lilian and Chris, were able to juggle their work hours so one of them was always home with Starling, and we had money as well. But then things went south again; Chris had to have a root canal done and I had a school excursion and a school camp in the same term so that basically did away with all the extra, and we were back to square one, in the poor house, despite all their efforts. I was then just nine so I wasn’t able to get a job at all, not even a paper run cause that had to be supervised and neither Lilian nor Chris could spare the time so it really was up to them to provide. They began to argue a lot more around this time, and always about money now, and then Chris got lucky and got himself a truck driving job on a six-month contract which paid good money but it took him out of town for weeks on end. He took it straightaway but he wasn’t happy to be leaving us. He worried about Lilian and Starling, and me cause I was too young to be left in charge but what could he do? —Exactly.

  He promised that he would call every few days and left. I was okay with it, kind of happy if I’m to tell the truth, about it but Lilian cried and she was worried how we were going to cope with the baby just the two of us so I told her that everything would be fine, and it was.

  Soon after Chris went trucking, Lilian got an offer from a friend to work behind the bar in his pub. She took it cause it was only night time work twice a week and she rearranged her hours at the salon, working some afternoons and Saturday mornings. I took care of Starling when Lilian was working, and the two of us had a great time together. Starling was such an easy baby to take care of; she really was as good as gold and never cried, only when she was teething but we had medicine to give her for that, which seemed to help some. Anyway, it was nothing and on the whole she was a pleasure and we got on very well. Cause of our situation, one could say that we were joined at the hip from the very beginning, so much so that Chris even got a little jealous and he berated Lilian for giving me the baby to take care of too much. Lilian told me Chris was concerned because he didn’t want to burden me with the care of a little baby, said he wanted me to be more like other kids, to run around with friends and do things kids my age usually did but I was never like that, ever; I’ve always preferred to be by myself, to be free to do my own thing, and obviously I knew that Chris wanted me out of the way to have Starling more to himself. Course, Lilian would never admit that Chris was jealous of me and kept going on about me being a carefree, normal kid so I pretended that I agreed with her, just to make her happy.

  In all honesty, the six months that Chris was away was the best time me, Lilian and Starling ever had. But Chris returned and we were back to how it was. For a bit we had money and things were good; we even went on a short holiday to a real nice beach but then everything went back to normal and we struggled again. Chris worked at a mechanic’s for a bit but then they sacked him for no reason and there was a fist fight between him and the boss and Chris caught the worst of it cause the other dude was much bigger but still, Lilian was proud of Chris for standing up for his rights, much good that it did him. So after he got beat up, it was only Lilian working at the pub and the salon, and Chris stayed home with Starling while he recuperated from his injuries. Well, the healing took a lot longer than expected; Chris seemed to really like the recuperating process and as time went on he got used to taking it easy and even slacked off on his parenting responsibilities cause every afternoon he left me with Starling while he disappeared for hours, jogging in the hills and taking photographs. He did take some beautiful pictures of sunsets and of animals and trees and of people who happened to be about in those surroundings. He took a lot of pictures of people, and they were good, really natural. The folks in them didn’t even realize they were being photographed, that’s how good he was but Chris was never happy with the results and he didn’t like anybody looking at his pics. I was never allowed to tinker with his phone, as he put it, but I always looked when he wasn’t around just to see what he was up to. There were heaps of pictures of places and people. And cars. Chris took a lot of photos of all sorts of cars. Motorcycles as well. So this was how he spent his time when he was supposed to be sick. But I wasn’t going to say anything even though I knew that Chris could have easily found himself a new job. Then one night he told us we were going to move.

  He told us he’d had an offer to work on a fishing trawler and that he’d accepted it. He was to start as soon as possible so we were moving in two days, and taking only a few things with us, only personal stuff that would fit into the truck and the caravan as we’d have everything we need waiting for us on Cuckoo Island. I was stunned; I truly did not expect this cause we had stayed put here for almost three years now, the longest we’d been anywhere as far as I could remember. Lilian, of course, had known about this and she kept apologizing to me for not telling me sooner; she was sorry I’d leaving my school with all my friends behind, and she hoped I wasn’t too upset. The way she went on about it, I knew she wanted to be reassured that everything was going to be alright so I told her the truth. I wasn’t the least bit upset. The sort of friends I’d had here I’d find anywhere and as for school… School is just school, Mum, I told Lilian and she was so happy that she cried. She was going to miss all her friends at the salon and even the staff at the pub where she’d really bonded with the other barmaid and even some of the regulars; well, she always was a people person, so I had no doubt that she was attached. The salon people gave her a good send-off,
which took place at the pub where she cried again cause it was there she and Chris first told everyone about Starling, about Lilian expecting.

  Here the dream ends. Lilian’s turned on the television, over in the kitchen slash lounge space. It’s morning, but only just. The news comes on. It soon gets personal. I can’t help myself; I have to see. So I stick my head around the partition. Lilian’s sitting there, expressionless, hugging a steaming cup of coffee. She’s glued to the newsreader ladydude who tells us that the cadaver dog has failed to find any trace of the Missing Cuckoo Island Toddler — a photograph of a smiling Starling clutching her favourite sandals pops up in a window behind the newsreader, comes into focus while the ladydude craps on… and investigators are now pursuing a new direction in this puzzling case, following reports by local residents of several sightings of an small dark-green sedan seen loitering in the area in the days prior to the toddler’s disappearance.

  The photograph goes. The news goes on. Lilian takes a sip of her coffee. I pull my head in. I don’t need to get up yet. There’s nothing to see here.

  33

  Chris returns. We’re having a family breakfast around our little kitchen pull out when Detective Martin knocks on the door. We know it’s him cause nobody else has come over since the search parties ended. So it’s been a while and during this while we’ve only seen him.

  So Chris opens the door. There he is, Detective Martin, with Captain Josh and the other policeman, Jim the auxiliary, who’s mostly on call cause that’s how much crime happens on Cuckoo Island. Normally, the dude transmits fishing tips, community news and the weather report from the station in his spare time. But not today. Today, it looks like people will just have to stick their heads out of the window to see if it’s raining cause today apparently the man is needed on the job. Okay, we get it. A crime has occurred.