Night Swimming Page 3

  ‘Voice down,’ instructs Mum, like I’m a robot and I’ll respond to a spoken command. ‘Bit of time out would do you good.’ She is staring at me and I know she wants me to leave the room.

  Mum has not made reference to ‘time out’ since I was ten. She’s treating me like an infant. I should be able to voice my opinion, when I’m the one who spends the most time with him. I wanted Mum to pat my hand and say something like, This is Grandad’s home, and it always will be, and I’d never even think of putting my beloved father into an aged-care facility. She says no such thing. It isn’t Grandad who’s lost his mind, it’s her.

  I keep standing there for another minute, vibrating with anger, opening and closing my mouth like a furious goldfish, unable to find words to properly convey my rage that Mum thinks Grandad is some chattel it’s time to ship off because of a brain scan. She just watches me. She looks tired. I can’t remember the last time I felt this angry, probably back when kids from school called Clancy names.

  I give up and go to the lounge room. I want to slam the door behind me but I don’t want to disturb Grandad. He’s wearing his usual combination of corduroy pants and a buttoned shirt. His entire wardrobe is in shades of brown. Tonight, he’s wearing a khaki shirt and mushroom pants. He used to be tall and broad-shouldered, but age has crumpled him so he’s two-thirds of his former size. When he stands up, he stoops and needs a cane to walk. Sitting on the couch, he looks small. His skin is leathery from working outdoors all his life, and he has more hair growing from his ears and nose than from his head.

  Antiques Roadshow is blaring, but when I sit down on the couch next to him, I find he’s dozed off. I don’t mind Antiques Roadshow—the stories of objects, especially old things, can be pretty fascinating—but I have full hearing and I want to keep it that way, so I turn it down a few clicks. The sudden quiet wakes him up, and next thing he’s staring at me, blinking, and saying, ‘I must have had a nap.’ He chuckles, like this is a bizarre occurrence, when in fact he always sleeps through the day and into the evening. ‘How long was I out for?’

  I’m crying very quietly but my voice is all choked up when I go to speak. ‘Not long.’

  ‘What’s going on, Jess?’ He thinks I’m Mum. I don’t bother to correct him.

  ‘Nothing,’ I mumble.

  He looks at me for a long moment, eyes flicking back and forth. I stop crying. The moment passes. He asks, ‘How do you fix this TV?’

  I turn the volume back up to the ear-splitting level he prefers.

  My routine is the same every morning. I wake up because Marianne is crushing my sternum. If her attempt at CPR doesn’t work and I somehow manage to remain asleep through this, Marianne resorts to biting the softest parts of my face. I like to imagine it as an act of affection, that she’s simply making sure I’m alive because she loves me dearly and wouldn’t be able to go on in this world without me. In reality, she just wants breakfast.

  Marianne is ten, and she’s lived with us for a year and a half. My grandmother brought her home the last time she visited, having adopted her on a whim from the Animal Welfare League in Sydney: everybody needs a black cat. Mum was a bit pissed off, because it’s not like we don’t already have enough animals around the place, but she’s warmed to her. A little. She has been known to hurl Marianne off the desk when she’s trying to balance the books and Marianne decides to sit on the keyboard.

  I like imagining all of the lives Marianne had before she came to us. Every time I see a black cat on TV I think it might be her. She’s got the diva attitude necessary for an actor. I wonder if she ever thinks about what her old owners are up to, or if she grieves for the life she had before. The only thing I know for sure is that she’s pretty damn keen on getting her Fancy Feast at the crack of dawn.

  So I wake to my room lit up in the gold of early morning. I lie there for a minute, trying to make my eyes stay open when they want to remain glued shut. I push Marianne off, and get out of bed before I fall back to sleep.

  I put on jeans and a T-shirt. I’m a fan of the jeans called ‘boyfriend jeans’. I’ve never had a boyfriend, and the jeans are made for women, but I like them because they’re substantially less likely to cut off my circulation. I am very concerned about the health dangers of too-tight jeans.

  I’m not very trendy, but no one in town is, so it’s not a problem. I may have borrowed a few style cues from my mother, although her jeans are all bootcut and she wears a great deal more plaid than I do. But it could be worse: I could emulate Grandad and his predilection for extremely high-waisted pants.

  I squint at myself in the hall mirror on the way out. My hair is a nondescript colour between blonde and brown, my skin is altogether too pale for this climate, and I have the sort of figure that would have made me a babe during the Renaissance but that you don’t see gracing catwalks in the modern era. None of it bothers me enough to try to change it, and I don’t really care to be known for my looks. Right now, I look like a zombie, and I will continue to until I have a cup of tea and some carbs. I put my hair up in a ponytail so I feel like I look passable, then take Stanley on a stroll round to the IGA to pick up oranges and the paper for Grandad. It’s a crisp April morning, but the sun is out and it will warm up later on.

  Mr Gregson owns the IGA but isn’t there often, since he’s getting on in years, as Grandad would say. He thinks people his own age are old people, but that he’s not.

  So Mr Gregson isn’t in, but Nick is. Nick has a Greek surname I unfortunately fail to spell or pronounce, and since I’ve known him and his mum my whole life it’s too late now to ask him to pronounce it for me. I tend to refer to him as Nick from the IGA, and refer to his mum as Irini, mother of Nick from the IGA. Or Irini from around the corner. Or Irini who is the best cook I know, but don’t tell Clancy’s parents I said that.

  Nick is about the same age as my mum but he is not and never has been married, nor does he have any children. That’s the sort of thing that makes people in Alberton very suspicious, which is utterly unfair.

  ‘How’s Cyril?’ he asks.

  ‘Yeah, good,’ I say. I’m not going to give Nick from the IGA updates on my grandfather’s cognitive decline. I grab a bag of oranges and wait for Nick to unpack the newspapers that are all tied together in their little bales.

  He says something else, but he’s facing away from me so I only hear the last bit, which sounds like ‘crop circles’.

  That can’t be right. ‘Pardon?’

  He turns back, puts the paper on the counter and starts ringing up my purchases. ‘Did you hear about these crop circles?’ he asks.

  I shake my head and look down at the paper, but there’s nothing about it on the front page.

  He lowers his voice. ‘Crop circles in our town. Roger found ’em in the cane this morning. All… flat. And circular. Funny geometric shapes.’

  I’m trying to work out if Nick is joking. He seems sincere, an earnest look on his face. Maybe the crop circles are real. Not aliens, of course. Probably cows on LSD or something.

  ‘Roger Jameson?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes. That’ll be five dollars ninety-five,’ he says.

  ‘Right.’ I hand over an assortment of coins. ‘Did he see anything last night?’ I ask. I do not say the word aliens.

  Nick shakes his head. The cash register drawer dings as he closes it. He scratches his beard. ‘Probably a hoax.’ Then he shrugs. ‘No reason why we couldn’t have extra-terrestrial visitors, though, eh? Nice spot to visit.’

  I nod. ‘We ought to put up a sign. Bring in the tourists.’

  Nick looks like he’s going to say something else, so I hover.

  ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you…’ he begins, when Judy from the bakery swoops in.

  ‘You hear about these aliens?’ she booms.

  Then they’re into a big breakdown of the crop circles: why Mr Jameson’s crop, why here, why now, what do the aliens want. And I have to get back to give Grandad breakfast before work at Mr Pool’s. Whatever Nick
wanted to ask me, he can ask it later.

  *

  Grandad is a big proponent of a healthy breakfast: the importance of fruit and protein and adequate calcium intake has been drummed into me since I was a kid. Fruit salad and yoghurt, followed by cheese and Vegemite on toast. Grandad spreads the Vegemite on top of the cheese, unmelted, which is bizarre, frankly. I put the Vegemite on the toast first, the cheese melted over it, like a normal human being does. Then it’s a pot of Earl Grey tea for the two of us.

  Some mornings I help him shower—he’s got arthritis in his knees and hands, which makes it difficult for him to wash himself, and he can’t get at his back or dry between his toes. I don’t mind it: I feel useful and important. If I weren’t around, Grandad’s routine would be a lot trickier. He usually dozes off after breakfast, about a third of the way into the paper; that’s when I head to work.

  Right now, we’re at the point in the routine where we’re drinking our Earl Grey and Grandad is reading the paper in bed, while I sit beside him, flicking through the breakfast shows on TV.

  ‘Look at this.’ He points to the headline of an article on page three: New Treatment for Alzheimer’s Patients Offers Hope. ‘See, I’m lucky I’ve got my marbles.’ He taps his temple with a finger.

  Sadness hits me like a wave. I don’t know whether I’m sad that his mind’s going, or sad that he doesn’t know it. Maybe it’s better, not knowing your mind is deteriorating. I’d rather believe he was a bit forgetful, like Mum is when she goes looking for her glasses and they’re on top of her head.

  My eye is caught by the article below, about a psychology professor receiving an award for excellence in research. There’s a photo the size of two postage stamps, grainy black and white: an elderly gentleman and a middle-aged man shaking hands. The younger man holds a statuette, all metal and glass, and smiles out at the camera. His nose is skewed, like it was once broken. His smile is uneven, too many teeth in his mouth. The shape of his face is the same as mine: plump, no outline of cheekbones, the sort of face that is friendly but not especially attractive. Those features on a teenage girl like me can seem cute. On a middle-aged man, they seem oddly childlike.

  He bears an uncomfortable resemblance to my dad.

  I’m extrapolating based on photos I have of my father when he was twenty-five and holding me as an infant. There are probably a thousand middle-aged men who look a bit like the man in that photo. I can’t tell his hair, eye or skin colour. He might be a redhead, and my father’s hair is—was—light brown. I can’t make out any freckles—anyone from whom I got my skin tone would be covered in them. If it were a colour photo, I’d be able to tell immediately if the eyes were wrong. Just because a guy in the paper looks vaguely like a guy in a seventeen-year-old photo doesn’t mean they’re one and the same.

  I can’t seem to see straight for long enough to read the article, but I find the name in the caption. It’s probably only ten-point font, but the letters may as well be as tall as the broadsheet: Dr Jack Matheson. It’s slightly different from the name on my birth certificate (Jaxon Mathieson), but it’s too improbable for this to be a coincidence. The father I haven’t seen or spoken to or known the whereabouts of since back when my favourite book was The Very Hungry Caterpillar is staring out at me from the Sydney Morning Herald. He’s a professor of psychology at a university in the same state I live in.

  I am overcome with a sensation of being very far away. Darkness starts crawling in at the edge of my vision, as if I’m going to faint. Grandad has turned to the next page. He hasn’t seen him. Or he doesn’t remember him. Neither do I, not really. I only know him from the half-a-dozen photos we have of him from when I was baby.

  I’m doing the yoga breathing that my grandmother taught me ten years ago when she came home from India, and it’s hardly helping.

  Grandad turns to me, his brow wrinkled with concern. ‘Is your asthma playing up again?’

  I shake my head. ‘No, no. I’m fine. Mum’s the one with asthma.’

  He shakes his head like I’m being silly and goes back to his paper. ‘I know. That’s right. Your mother.’

  I can’t sit still. The only reasonable thing to do is go to work. ‘I better head off, Grandad.’

  ‘All right then,’ he says. I give him a kiss and take out the breakfast dishes.

  Mum and Nathan will be up, but they’ll already be out with the goats. If I look out the kitchen window, I could probably see them. I don’t feel ready to see anybody at the moment.

  A cupboard door bangs shut behind me, and I half-jump, half-turn, smashing into the drying rack with my elbow, which sings out in pain as I clutch it with my other hand. Nathan is standing there, dark hair tangled, holding a mug with a goat on it. Nathan is twenty-one and intimidatingly tall and looks hilarious in the duck-patterned pyjamas Grandad bought him for Christmas last year.

  ‘You right?’ he asks, switching on the kettle.

  I rub my arm. ‘Hit my funny bone. Shouldn’t you be working?’

  ‘Stayed late at Claire’s. Your mum said she didn’t mind if I slept in. Think she wants a bit of space to herself and that.’ He rummages in the pantry and emerges with the jar of coffee. ‘Why’s it called the funny bone?’

  ‘Are you…joking?’ I look at him. It appears he is not. I point to my upper arm. ‘That bone’s the humerus.’

  He grins. ‘That’s pretty good.’

  ‘It’s pretty obvious. How did you not know that?’

  He pours his coffee. ‘All my knowledge of human anatomy was gained from playing Operation, Kirb. Hey, you hear about these aliens? Practically abducted Mr Jameson?’

  I nod. It doesn’t take long for information to travel—and be distorted—in Alberton. Now is not the right time to tell Nathan about the man in the paper who might be my dad.

  Mr Pool seems surprised when I show up at his house, even though I’ve been showing up every weekday for the past fourteen months. Mr Pool is as old as my grandfather, but he’s been in our town longer. All his life, in fact. He’s bald and stout and his eyebrows are threatening to take over his face. He’s a bit sharper in the head than Grandad is—he isn’t surprised because he’s forgotten that I’m coming; he’s surprised because he doesn’t understand why, and thinks one day I’ll just stop. So I enjoy showing up every day to surprise him.

  I have a lot of this thing my grandfather calls ‘stick-to-itiveness’, if that’s a word. Mr Pool hasn’t got grandkids, Mrs Pool died a few years back from her diabetes, their kids are all spread out across the country and I don’t think they call or visit. I need money, I like building things and Mr Pool needs the company.

  Let’s be honest. It’s not an official apprenticeship. If it were, it would not be okay from an occupational health and safety standpoint for me to be building furniture in Mr Pool’s shed. I’m not sure Mr Pool is even a qualified carpenter. He used to run the newsagent’s, then he retired and started making tables and chairs as a hobby. He got a contract with a posh furniture place in the city that pays him top dollar so they can whack ‘Australian made’ and ‘artisanal’ stickers on tables and chairs and sell them at a 1000% mark-up.

  I want to be a responsible member of society and pay taxes but Mr Pool pays me in cash, on a chair-by-chair basis, even for the wonky ones he has to fix. I’m pretty sure that’s not legal, either, even if it’s fair.

  I can’t tell Mr Pool about perhaps finding my dad in the newspaper because he’s sort of my boss, and he’s an elderly man who might not understand.

  It’s good being in the shed at Mr Pool’s, because the circular saw and the drill drown out any possibility of conversation or of focusing on your own thoughts. If none of the power tools are on, he turns on ABC radio nice and loud, talkback keeping us company while we lacquer. This morning, I’m sanding and varnishing a walnut dining table while Mr Pool cuts, glues and clamps in place the legs of another table. Now that I know what I’m doing, there’s a meditative quality to the work. We don’t need to chat, and Mr Pool do
esn’t even bring up the crop circles.

  At half past ten, I head over to the newsagent for a bag of mixed lollies, for two reasons. The first being my deep and abiding love of mixed lollies, despite the fact that I am now virtually an adult and should know better (I brush and floss my teeth religiously to compensate). The second being Claire Down.

  She’s four years older than me, but I have loved Claire Down for as long as I have known her.

  Don’t go thinking this is going to be about Claire realising I’m her one true love after years of me being like a daggy younger sister to her, because that’s not how it is at all.

  In a town this size we spent a lot of time together growing up, but she always had that otherworldly, perfect quality of someone just a bit out of reach. Whenever someone got hurt playing footy, she’d show up with a first-aid kit. Some of the boys liked to harass local fauna when we were little, but she was always dedicated to protecting the echidnas and wombats. She is sweet and family-oriented, and has worked in the newsagent since she was twelve. She’s kept her hair the same way for years—a bob and a blunt fringe. It suits her. Her complexion is fair, but not as fair as mine. She has a twelve-year-old brother, Jonah, whom she treats with a level of kindness rarely exhibited by older siblings towards younger ones. She has never made jokes, or got jokes, but she’s so nice it hardly matters. So of course I loved her. How could I not?

  When I was younger, all Uncle Harry’s kids—my cousins Alicia and Nathan and Elliott—spent school holidays with us. Compared to their lives in the city, everything out here was novel for them, so that made it novel for me. Swimming in the river, constructing cubbies, playing cricket in the street, and even things that were usually work seemed fun, like milking the goats and processing the soaps.

  Elliott is my age, and Alicia and Nathan are older. Once Alicia and Elliott were teenagers they stopped visiting as often or as long. Instead of staying for two months over the summer, they’d come up for a week. Nathan started having trouble at school, and stayed with us more often and for much longer. Which Mum was happy about; Nathan has always been a help around the farm, and there is something about him that makes him more like her kid than I am. He is more practical. Nathan can be a bit of a joker, but he’s got great presence of mind. I can go wandering off in my head in a way my cousin doesn’t.