writings

in our backyard the flowers have melted into the earth and our gallahs are dying from heatstroke. i am eight and i have a love-hate relationship with the heat. my mother is still young, her hair reaches her elbows and she is always laughing. she buys a blow up pool from the store and we spend forever blowing it up with our breath. eventually when it is done i sit in there naked with the hose on and it slowly fills with cool water. i sing ‘mama, come in it’s so nice!’ and she takes off her clothes and we sit in the blow up pool together beneath the sun. our skin sizzles and cools, she is holding me so that i can feel her breasts at my back and her burning face against the side of mine. she tells me ‘baby, i love you so much i could fill the ocean with it’ and i tell her that all the water in the world is my love- the seas, rivers, rain, baths. i imagine all the water alive. she kisses my forehead many times and we stay in the pool until the sun no longer troubles us and our toes look like prunes.

this is the summer of unusual happenings.

it begins with granddad. he is on the veranda one day after dinner when suddenly a possum throws itself from a tree’s branch and begins climbing across the railing. me and mama are in the kitchen washing dishes and listening to the radio but i can still hear it land and hook its claws in the wood. you have to imagine granddad, he is very tall but he is the most gentle giant you would ever meet. he is always saying ‘please’ and ‘thankyou’ and ‘look how pretty my girls are!’- though mostly he is quiet. this time, when i strain my ears i hear this:

‘mr. possum, how are you this evening?’

‘little hungry stanley, but otherwise quite dandy’

i look at mother with very wide eyes and she laughs like i am just pulling a face to be silly. i put a finger in front of my lips so she hushes and i keep listening.

‘would you like some mango or an apple?’

‘very kind of you stan, but i couldn’t let you do that’

‘oh it’d be my pleasure, always good to help out an old friend’

granddad comes inside and grabs an apple and i stare at him in disbelief. he looks at me like maybe i’ve gone a little crazy then he smiles at mama and she smiles back. the door closes. crunching noises.

‘good apple sir, good apple! red delicious? no, don’t tell me! pink lady? one of those exotic buggers from new hawaii?’

‘can’t say i know mr. possum. but i think we both know there are more worrying matters at hand.’

now their voices are getting softer and i am trying with all my might to hear them above the sound of ‘lucy in the sky with diamonds’. 

‘yes, i know. i’ve been listening to the moon and it seems dreadful. absolutely terrible.’

‘but we can still-‘

‘i should believe so. but if this happens-‘

‘we won’t let it will we? all we have to do is find the rumblebeast in the hunter valley before-‘

suddenly i drop the dish i am drying and it shatters into a billion starred pieces on the galaxy of the kitchen floor. there is all silence. i can hear the possum scurrying away. and i want to cry out ‘before what granddad!’ but when i run out there he is gone too. and mum is cross at me for running away when there is so much broken glass everywhere. 

‘stay on the veranda and don’t come in until i tell you so’ mama says before i can go looking for him. an apple balances on the railing, it has tiny teeth marks all over it. i lean over and look over the front yard, but there is no sign of him. i take a bite of the apple and it tastes funny but i’m eight and i don’t really care. i watched the trees and their whispers sound uneasy. i am worried for the moon, the possums, mama and granddad. i’m even a little worried about the tumblebeast- even though i don’t know who he is yet.