Burning Boy (Penguin Award Winning Classics), The (12 page)

‘Hello, Lex. I thought I might find you sick in bed.'

‘I've got a sick goat.'

‘What's wrong with it?'

‘Pneumonia.'

‘Is that serious?' She smelt him as he came close: fresh and stale sweat mixed. There was a smear of something like mucus on his shirt.

‘She'll die,' he said, and shrugged.

‘Shouldn't you get the vet?'

‘Don't like vets. They've got to die of something. Where'd Sandra go?'

‘Back to school. She does have classes, Lex. I came up to see why you hadn't telephoned. We managed to get someone to fill in but what we really need is reasonable notice if you're sick – or one of your goats.'

‘Yeah. I got stuck up there. I didn't want to leave her.'

‘Well Lex, that's as may be, –' Norma frowned, not liking the phrase, ‘– but the fact is, teaching can't take second place. We have to know you're where you're meant to be – barring major emergencies of course. And I can't see …' A goat dying of pneumonia – how much would that measure on her scale? She had a glimpse of vastly different places in Lex. Margins of familiar ground running into shadow.

‘Sorry,' he said, ‘I guess I wasn't thinking too clear.' He smiled at her and a slight goofiness, his overlapping front teeth, reassured her.

‘Is everything all right, Lex? Are you sure you're well? Sandra's worried.'

‘I'm OK. Sometimes I guess I don't eat enough. I forget to go to the shop.'

‘Have you got any food in the house now?'

‘Probably not.'

‘Here then, take these.' She brought the plates of muffins and cakes from her car and put them on the porch steps. ‘It's all right. I bought them at a stall. I wasn't sure what to do with them.'

‘Hey, that's great.' He took a muffin in each hand. ‘Fact is, Norma,' chewing, ‘I've quit. I'm not coming back any more. I was
going to ring you up but I forgot.'

‘You're supposed to give more notice than that.'

He put half a muffin in his mouth. There was nothing goofy in his eyes. ‘But you don't care, eh? You're glad to have me out of the place. It's not as if I'm doing a good job.'

‘Well, I don't know.' Once she had walked in on a sixth-form class where he was explaining history and legend and myth. King Alfred (Lex said), though he may not have burned the cakes, was historical. Robin Hood was legendary – no large meanings there – and King Arthur a step to the side, between the legendary and the mythical. Something changes in our way of seeing, need comes in and Arthur becomes more than a man. Then there's the myth with religion in it, Orpheus and Persephone, Adam and Eve – attempts to answer questions about why and who. And folk-myth is different again – trolls and green men and leprechauns.

Norma was fascinated. It was, she supposed (she hoped), the standard exposition, but Lex – was it his voice, his manner, his way of seeming, put himself back there? – made it thrilling. ‘And what were we like even further back?' he had asked. ‘When we had no why or when or until or because? When things just happened? A time when we weren't what we call human, still part ape?' (Norma was alarmed. This could lead to trouble with Mr Stanley.) ‘All we had was now.
Now
was it. We didn't speculate on things but were locked up in our self. And what we touched and ate and saw were part of
me
.' He banged his chest (and couldn't help looking a bit like Tarzan). ‘Long before
me
was an idea.'

‘If it was so long ago?' a girl said.

‘Yes?'

‘How come you know all this stuff?'

‘Well, I don't,' Lex grinned. ‘I'm only guessing.' He let them down. ‘How and why and when, eh? It can be a disease.'

‘You were a good teacher, Lex. At least I thought so. Until you split up with Ros. Not that I've got any right … What will you do?' She was anxious not to let him change his mind. She felt that a sore place in her school was suddenly healed.

‘Stay here and look after my goats.'

‘Can you make a living from that?'

‘I've got a bit of money in the bank.' He was vague, and he took a pink cake and looked at it as though he did not understand the colour. Her sense of his vast strangeness returned. How had he moved so far from normal concerns without her hearing signals of danger and setting herself between him and the girls? She looked for signs of sickness in his face, but, though three-day whiskered, it seemed simply thoughtful, a bit neglected. His dirty tartan shirt and dirty jeans were quite usual for a goat farmer, she supposed. As for the house and property, one must not fit everything to that little wheel of hers that went round and round with even clicks. Other people were happy with other things. But the goats; it was the goats, browsing on the hill, unconcerned, primeval, that shifted Lex and made him unacceptable. Goats as partners, goats as friends, who made a kind of sympathetic goatness in him? She wanted to shake him; cry at him that he must not go along that way or he would lose himself. Was this what Sandra felt? Was this why Sandra played woman to him on the lawn?

‘Lex –'

He spoke at the same time: ‘There's no problem, is there? Getting someone to take my place? Plenty of out-of-work teachers in this town.'

‘That's no problem. But Lex –'

‘What I want to do is, come and say goodbye to 4CI. I've got them last period today. That OK? I've got some work to give back.'

‘I can take it, Lex. There's no need –'

‘They're good kids. I'd like to say goodbye.'

‘Are you sure you'll be there?' She did not want him in the school again. ‘I'll have to look in. They'll be confused otherwise.'

‘Sure, no trouble. Then I'll be gone. You can stop worrying, eh? Get some nice lady to take my place.' He was making easy fun of her, and she smiled: ‘Don't eat too many of those cakes, otherwise you will be sick in bed.'

Their conversation wound its way down. Lex climbed the hill to look at his goat, while Norma turned her car on the lawn. She drove slowly down the rutted drive, and stopped by the golf course and looked back. He was coming down again, holding the goat under one arm. That probably meant it was dead. He would dig a grave and bury it and forget. That, she was sure, would be his way. She could not see what else might be added, yet somehow it did not seem enough.

Norma saw Duncan Round on the shell road. She waved at him and sped back to her school.

When he walked in the class made a hiss, then started to talk all at once.

‘Sir, sir, we thought you were sick, sir.'

‘We thought you'd got the sack.'

‘We thought you'd run away with Miss Duff, sir.'

‘How's your goats, sir?'

‘Sir, you're not supposed to wear jeans at school.'

Mrs Sangster came in the door as he reached the table. Everyone stood up and after the scraping of chairs it was so quiet, laughter in the next room sounded as if it came from the book cupboard.

‘Thank you, girls. Sit down,' Mrs Sangster said. ‘I want to apologize for intruding. I'll go away in a moment but I wanted to look in because – you don't mind if I tell them, Mr Clearwater? – Mr Clearwater is leaving us.' She waited until the noise died down. ‘This is the last time you'll be seeing him. And as I won't have the chance of saying thank you at assembly and telling him how very much we're all going to miss him I thought I'd take the opportunity now …'

Hayley did not believe a word of it. What had happened, Lex had got the sack. It wasn't hard to see why when you looked at him alongside Mrs Sangster. She was like one of the Golden Girls. Lexie looked as if he'd been lost in the bush. Hayley liked his beard, it was kind of blue and made him look like a crim, but the stuff like dried snot on his shirt was real yukky. From where she was sitting by the window she could see a bit of red underpants where the seam of his jeans had come unstuck and his sneakers had holes in them at his big toes. One of his toes went up and down like he couldn't wait for Mrs Sangster to get finished. Real neat. Mrs Sangster was trying hard to look like everything was OK, but you could tell she had ants in her knickers. Hayley felt a bit sorry for her.

‘Well, I'll leave you now to say goodbye. I'm not quite sure yet who your new form teacher will be but we'll get that sorted out later
on. Thanks, Mr Clearwater. Thank you, girls.' She did not want to go, that stuck out. She probably thought Lexie would start giving sex lessons. Sheryl Thomas said, ‘Mrs Sangster, we didn't have time to buy a present.'

‘Yes, I'm sorry about that. We only found out this afternoon.'

‘We could collect some money now.'

‘I've got a dollar,' Michelle Hunter said.

‘I've got fifty cents.'

‘No, no. Well,' Mrs Sangster said, ‘it's up to your form leader to organize. I'm sure Mr Clearwater –'

‘I don't want a present. I really just came to say goodbye.'

‘What school are you going to, sir?'

‘Are you going to keep on farming goats?'

‘I'll leave it to you, Mr Clearwater, now. Perhaps you could look in at my office as you go?' Mrs Sangster left, with a hesitation at the door and a nervous blink round the room. She would probably sneak back and listen in the corridor, Hayley thought.

‘OK, pipe down,' Lex said.

‘Why are you really leaving, sir?'

‘Did you get the sack?'

‘I would have if I hadn't got in first. You might be in luck and get a real teacher when I'm gone.'

‘You were neat, sir.'

‘You didn't yell at us anyhow.'

‘Or keep on telling us off about our hair. You haven't had a shave today, sir.'

‘I mightn't ever have a shave again.'

‘Hey, your beard would grow down to your feet.'

‘You wouldn't have to wear trousers, sir.'

‘Everyone shut up.'

Hayley thought he looked tired, sick of things. He looked as if he might walk out. ‘Yeah, shut up,' she said. ‘Let Mr Clearwater say something.'

‘Thank you, Hayley. There's not much I want to say. Mainly, I'm sorry for wasting your time. I can get out but you're stuck here for a while, most of you. There's nothing for you to do except keep on and learn what you can and not butt your heads against the wall, not too hard. There's some not bad teachers in this school. Mrs Sangster's OK, So's Miss Duff.'

‘Miss Duff's your girlfriend, sir.'

‘So?' He looked out of the window at Stovepipe Hill, and was gone so long questions started flying again and died away. He said, ‘You girls are in a machine and it's processing you. That's not good, but it's not all bad. If you keep your eyes open and chuck out the phoney stuff and keep what's real …'

He really was tired and he didn't care about this. Part, he was telling lies, and part, just opening his mouth and letting it talk. It scared Hayley, he was so far away. Her mother was like that most of the time. She couldn't see why Lex had come in. The rest of the class felt something wrong too and kept quiet until he stopped. Then Donna Gethin, who would say anything and was so tough some girls said she fucked Korean sailors for money at the port, Donna said a thing no one could believe. ‘Sir, what say you were screwing your nanny goats sir, would the babies have people's heads or what?'

Lex turned his eyes round, sad and slow. He swallowed a few times and ran his hand up and down his cheek, making a dry sound on the bristles. ‘Donna,' he said, ‘don't talk like that. Don't ever say a thing like that again.' He pressed the heel of his palm in his eyes, then wiped his hand dry on his shirt. ‘What you're getting at, it isn't true. That sort of thing doesn't happen. All right?'

‘It wasn't me that said it.'

‘Maybe not.' He was gentle with her, a thing Hayley could not understand. Laughter came from the next room again and squeaky shoes – Pure Muir – moved down the corridor. Lex said, ‘I'll give you back your folders. Then maybe we can have a talk. I've got to stay till the end of the period. But no lesson, eh?'

‘No, sir.'

‘OK. Come and get 'em.' He read out names and girls came one by one and took their folders to their desks. Hayley did not look at him as she took hers. She had written something she was sorry about and did not want him saying anything. Back in her seat she looked at her mark, saw the usual corrections, and six crossed out and seven in its place. It was the best mark she had ever had and she looked at Lex, wondering what he had liked.

‘All right, girls. Any comments?'

‘You didn't mark these, sir.'

‘It's Miss Duff's writing. She does her “ees” like this.'

‘And she does this cross mark on her sevens.'

‘You've found me out.'

‘That's cheating, sir.'

‘I apologize. But I did read one or two of them. Yours Hayley, liked it very much. Now put 'em away. Let's just have a chat, eh? I didn't come here to play schoolteachers.'

Sir, they said, do you miss your wife? What's it like getting divorced, sir? Do they make you say you hate each other? Do you miss your baby, sir? Were you there when he was born? What was it like? Do you watch Miami Vice? Do you like Pseudo Echo or Culture Club? Is this really a good school? Why can't we wear our hair long? Why does Mrs Muir shout at us like we're not people? Do you and Miss Duff go to bed?

As he answered he seemed to get further away and his words more bare. Hayley was frightened. It was unusual for anything at school to frighten her – but this was not a lesson and what he said came from somewhere teachers were not supposed to go. She wondered if he was sick, she wondered if he would kill himself. He reminded her of the gorilla in the Melbourne zoo, sitting in the back of his cage. His eyes had that hardness and dreaminess. No, he said, I don't miss anything. I was there but I don't remember. All the things she's missed are killing her, that's why she can't see you, that's why she shouts.

When Donna asked about Miss Duff he changed. He came back and turned into a teacher and seemed sad and dirty suddenly. ‘Have you heard of the fifth amendment? It's something the Americans have and it lets them refuse to answer questions. So, about that, I take the fifth.'

‘Come on, sir.'

‘We won't tell.'

‘Miss Duff and I are just good friends.'

It was pathetic, a waste of time. Hayley wanted the period to end so she could get down town and look in the shops for the bra her father had given her money for. She wondered if Lex could see that the girls were getting ready to be cruel. Donna would ask about the goats again. Hayley wanted Mrs Sangster to come and take him away.

The bell rang. She zipped her bag and stood up. Girls were rushing at the door. Others clustered about Lex at the table. She went around the back of them.

‘Just a minute, Hayley.'

‘What?'

‘I mean it, I like your essay. I think you really got on to something there.'

‘Thanks,' she said.

‘How'd you like to come up and see my goats?'

‘Ooh, Hayley.'

‘He fancies you, Hayley.'

‘Shut up,' Lex said. ‘In fact the lot of you can clear out. Go on, buzz off. Not you, Hayley.'

‘Keep your legs crossed, Hayley.'

Lex got them out and closed the door. ‘Girls have changed since my day.'

‘What do you want, sir? I've got to get down the road and do some shopping.'

‘Have you ever looked in a goat's eyes, Hayley?'

‘I've never seen a goat. I've seen them tied up at the side of the road.'

‘They're interesting creatures. They're a bit like your gorilla.'

‘Yeah? He chucked a whole branch of a tree at us. I didn't put that in.'

‘Did you really cry like that?'

She had known she should not write it. ‘Nah, we laughed. Shelley and me showed him our knickers.'

‘Come on, Hayley. We're not on different sides.'

‘My sister's boyfriend shot a goat and gave us some meat. Tasted good. Shelley cooked it in a kind of stew.'

Lex leaned back and half sat on his table. He made a little laugh and said, ‘I thought you were a stupe, Hayley, but I can see you're fairly bright.'

‘Thank you, sir. Can I go now?'

‘I'll tell you a thing that happened. A couple of years ago I went around my fences to see if there were any holes and right up the top, place I hadn't looked at for a while, there's gorse growing right up in the corner – I found one of my goats. She was a doe and she'd gone in and reached under the wire for some grass on the other side, and she got her horns caught and couldn't get loose and so she died there. When I found her she was just a skeleton, but her skin was still on, so she was a skeleton in a fur coat. That was pretty
horrible, don't you think? But what really got me, while she was stuck there she gave birth. So there was a little skeleton in a fur coat by her side. I suppose it got some milk for a while, and then when the mother died it died too.'

Big deal, Hayley thought. What did he expect, she'd start to cry? He wasn't going to turn her on and off like a tap.

‘It's getting late. I've got to buy a bra.'

‘Hayley, I'm not asking for anything. I'm just saying if you'd like to come and see me –'

‘You're not supposed to see girls out of school.'

He stood up from the table, turned away; looked out of the window. ‘You could help me, Hayley.'

She did not know what he meant, but noticed he was contradicting himself – not wanting something, then wanting it. She guessed that ‘help' meant he wanted to fuck her. All this because she wrote that stuff about the gorilla.

‘You're going to be late for Mrs Sangster.'

‘She can wait.'

‘I'll have to ask my father if I can come.' She would not ask but wanted to see what Lex would say.

‘Fathers have got a way of saying no.'

‘Do you mean you want me to come sort of secret?'

‘I don't know.'

‘What about Miss Duff? She'll get jealous, eh?'

‘Hayley,' his eyes blinked fast, kind of sad, ‘that isn't what I want you for.'

‘What do you want, sir?' She laughed. It was funny calling him sir in the middle of this.

‘Just someone to visit me.'

‘But I guess we'd still end up – you know.'

Lex leaned his back on the blackboard and put his head against it so words of chalk writing were smudged. He closed his eyes, and said after a moment, ‘All this looks like a mistake.' He seemed to be talking to himself. It made her uncertain how to go on.

‘I gotta go, sir. I might come, I dunno. I've got a lot of jobs at home and I've got softball practice.'

‘Do what you want to, Hayley.'

‘Yeah. Bye, sir. I won't tell Mrs Sangster or Miss Duff.'

She went down the corridor and saw Mrs Muir coming towards
her, forward-sloping, skating her shoes along and opening and closing her mouth like a fish.

‘Where's Mr Clearwater?'

‘In his room.'

‘What's he been telling you girls?'

‘Nothing. We just been talking.'

‘What about? What's he been asking you to do?'

‘He gave our essays back, that's all. I gotta go, Mrs Muir, gotta buy a bra.'

‘Yes, go. Get out.
Don't run, girl
.'

‘I'm walking fast, Mrs Muir. Looks like running but it's not.'

‘I know running when I see –'

The end was cut off as Hayley went through the swing doors. She laughed aloud, hoping it would carry to Mrs Muir, and ran down the steps, across the quadrangle, through another wing, to the bike stands.

‘What'd he want, Hayley?'

‘Ah, nothing. Wanted me to go and look at his goats. I told him I had softball practice.'

She swung her leg over and rode away. (The bike had been Wayne's and she liked riding a man's bike, liked standing in the car park with her leg hooked over the bar, watching all the men perve at her knickers. The old men, the shopkeepers, were the funniest, sly lookers.) Halfway down the hill Lex passed her in his ute and gave a honk. He'd got rid of Muir pretty quick, and hadn't gone to Mrs Sangster's office like she'd told him. Good old Lex.

She tried on half a dozen bras in Boothams and the saleswoman kept on sticking her head in the cubicle, scared she would nick one. She'd nicked a blouse from there once, but it wasn't an easy place – and anyway, since Shelley was busted, she'd given up shop-lifting, even rubbers and biros from Whitcoulls. Her mum and dad wouldn't be able to stand any more trouble. So maybe she'd better not go to Lex's. She'd read in her mother's old diaries that ‘a girl should keep herself for one man'. ‘Kay told me that when a man does it to you he has to put his thing in and leave it there all night but if he pulls it out there won't be a baby.' Her mother had been sixteen when she wrote that. Totally unbelievable, it wiped Hayley out. But as she got closer to home and her mother – up the side of the creek in its concrete channel, past the car-yards and the
wreckers'-yards and the paint factory with the colours on its rainbow faded to different shades of white, great ad – she started to feel the thing come down on her, and feel she was riding out of warm into cold and all her clothes had gone damp and snails were crawling on her chest. Forgetting was a trick she had learned – but turning past the coal-yard on the corner was where it didn't work any more.