Cloudwish (21 page)

chapter 47

Twelve Balmain Street, Abbotsford,
was inked in the diary for after school Thursday, witchy-wish-writer-teacher visit, take two.

The street wasn't so deserted this time. As she pressed the doorbell, Vân Ước got a suspicious once-over from the next-door neighbours who were throwing a bird net over their fruit-laden fig tree.

Ms Bartloch opened the door after one flat bing-bong chime from inside. She was retro-outfitted again; today, she was channelling Lois Lane, and carrying a big work bag – just arrived home, or about to go out.

‘Hello.' She was clearly surprised to see Vân Ước.

Now or never. ‘Ms Bartloch, I looked you up in the directory. I'm sorry to disturb you.'

‘Remind me – you're from the year eleven class at Crowthorne?'

She nodded. ‘I'm the one who lost the little glass vial – at the beginning of term? Sorry about that. My name's Vân Ước.' She'd rehearsed this, but couldn't bring herself to deliver the next line, which was,
Has anything unusual ever happened with the small wish vial before?

The old dudes were there, talking softly:
She's standing there like a complete dummy/Good on her for coming back, though/Not if she can't say what she needs to.

‘The most unusual things happen with that . . .' Ms Bartloch was rummaging in her very large bag. She put it down on the veranda's cushion-strewn bench, lifted out the box of prompts, and from the box pulled the vial. It was the one: the same handwritten word,
wish
, in the same spidery writing, trapped within.

‘But – I couldn't find it that day in class. I really searched.'

Ms Bartloch shrugged. ‘I guess someone else must have picked it up and returned it to the box.'

Vân Ước said, ‘You don't think – I mean . . .' She laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of what she was about to say, then stopped, shaking her head. ‘No, don't worry, it's too silly . . .'

‘If you're about to ask me, does this little thing have the power to grant a wish, you're not the first student to ask, and my answer is . . .' She looked straight at Vân Ước. ‘My answer is, who knows?'

‘Really?'

‘Put it this way. Officially, I don't believe in magic. But a couple of times in England I've stayed in big old houses, and when there's a bedroom with a big old wardrobe, I step in and I put my hand right up to the back of it. I'm checking for fur coats, snow and pine needles.' She frowned. ‘And, as I say it, I realise I no longer seem rational.'

‘Have you read
Jane Eyre
?'

‘More than once.'

‘What do make of Jane Eyre hearing Mr Rochester calling her name?'

‘Exactly – you couldn't meet a more sensible character, right? But she heard something.'

‘I rely on Jane, but she is fictional,' said Vân Ước.

‘Hey, some of the best people I know are fictional.' Ms Bartloch held the wish vial out. ‘Take it. Try again, and see how it goes.' She gave Vân Ước the most reassuring of smiles. The smile said,
I don't think you're crazy, I don't think it's magic, but I wish you luck
.

‘I shouldn't,' Vân Ước said as her fingers closed around the vial. ‘I already lost it once.'

‘And yet here it is, finding you.' Ms Bartloch zipped up her bag, slung it back over her shoulder, and said, ‘No big deal. I know the tree they grow on.'

Holding the wish vial, Vân Ước watched as Ms Bartloch went back inside the house; she felt fifty per cent stupid, fifty per cent hopeful, and one hundred per cent terrified.

She slipped the vial into the side pocket of her dress and zipped it.

Jess was right, the phrasing of the wish was going to take some figuring out. None of the re-wishes she'd come up with would do. She didn't want to accidentally wish for something dumb, as fairytale wishers always do, and end up with a sausage for a nose.

She shook her head and seriously wondered if she should be making an appointment with Dr Chin to get a referral to a psychiatrist.

When she got home to the flats, she was still worry-deep in wish land, and didn't even notice the group of boys in the playground area again until she heard the cat-calling whistle.

‘Wouldn't mind a piece of that,' said Nick.

She stopped as though she'd been smacked. ‘I just saw your mum down Albert Street, Nick. And your little sister.'

She walked right over to the boys and spoke in a loud, clear voice. She hardly recognised herself. And it was obvious that neither did they. ‘How would you like someone telling your mum or your sisters they wouldn't mind
a piece of that
?'

The boys were shifting about uncomfortably, not looking at her.

‘Huh? Didn't hear you.'

‘Just sayin', you're looking hot, girl,' Nick mumbled.

‘Well, you don't get to judge me. I'm not here for your assessment.'

‘It's just a fucken compliment,' Nick said.

‘No, it's sexual harassment. And I'm sick of it.' She made eye contact with each boy. ‘And don't call me “girl”. I have a name, and you've all known it since we were five. You owe me an apology. You're better than this. Most of you,' she said, saving her harshest look for Nick. ‘And, come
on
, you guys, you're just as bad as he is if you let him say that stuff. Tell him to pull his head in if he talks like that to me, or to any other girl.'

A couple of mumbled
sorry
s came her way from the swings and monkey bar. And Matthew said, ‘Nick?' with an accompanying persuasive shove.

‘Okay,' Nick said. ‘Sorry. Jeez.'

‘All right,' she said. ‘Just remember. Have some respect.'

She kept her composure until she was inside the building, but it was impossible to resist a few tap-dance steps on her way to the lift to express the effervescence she felt at finally speaking up.

Jane would definitely approve.

chapter 48

. . . gentle
reader may you
never feel what I felt . . .

When she unlocked the door and walked in, she sobered at once, seeing her mother's sombre face. Her mother sat her down.

‘You have asked to hear more,
con
. But I've never wanted to infect you with my sadness.'

‘I want to know your story. Whatever you want to tell me.'

It seemed that once the floodgates had opened, it was easier for her mother to keep talking than to remain silent.

As her mother spoke, Vân Ước felt the reverberation of so many first-hand accounts she'd read over the years.

They escaped on their third attempt – her mother, her father and her aunt. It was 1980. Her mother was twenty-one. The boat they were on, like many commissioned for this work, was not a particularly safe vessel; it was built for rivers, not for the open sea.

Overcrowding. Insufficient, cramp-inducing space per person. Minimal belongings. Enough water and food for a few days. Ridiculous expectations. Faith. Fear.

When the engine broke down after three days, no one was surprised. With any luck they would drift or catch a tow to land within another day. But another day passed; they were becalmed. Another day, and things were getting ugly. The scorching sun and calm, turquoise waters would surely kill them. They sat, by now, in a swill of excrement, bilge, and fear.

At first babies were crying and could not be comforted, then they lost the energy to cry. There was very little water left. Her mother was sixteen weeks pregnant. Her father and her aunt, Hoa Nhung, were looking after her mother as well as they could, but she was dehydrated and exhausted from vomiting. Fellow travellers, crammed into the stinking vessel like sardines, resented the water, fed to her sip by sip by Vân Ước's father, that she reliably threw up.

They ran out of everything except the hope-despair that had put them on board in the first place.

Her mother remembered looking up into the pitiless sky and, because she felt sure she was going to die, wishing what she guessed were probably pointless wishes, but wishing anyway. She knew she should have been praying this close to the end, but she'd lost heart, after all she had seen and survived, first in Vietnam, and on this journey – for nothing, in the end; lost faith. So she sent wishes up into that lidless blue eye.
Baby be safe, baby be strong, baby grow up without fear, without hunger. Be free. Let me die, let my baby live
.

When someone spotted another boat in the water, relief washed over them. This was good luck, a chance that they would reach their destination, after all. The air was briefly celebratory. But as the boat drew closer, they recognised it as a vessel carrying Thai pirates. There was an outpouring of anxiety. There was no escape. In fact, they needed the boat to approach them; some water and some help with the engine was their only hope for survival. In a scramble and panic, children were taken below and hidden. Some of the women started crying and screaming: they knew their likely fate.

Her father and Hoa Nhung hacked off her mother's hair, and wiped oil from the engine room over her face and hands. Her father took off his shirt and put it on her mother. She was barely conscious of what they were doing, but she knew what was happening when the pirates tied the two boats together and took a group of women, including her sister, onto their boat.

Her mother thinks she must have appeared to be a dirty little boy; none of the pirates looked twice at her.

The women were brought back on board the next day. The whole boat was silent with grief for what the women had suffered. The men were ashamed that they had been powerless to stop it. The pirates took everything of value they could find, including the gold teeth of five men, which they pulled out with pliers.

The next day they crossed paths with another boat, were given food and water and help fixing the engine.

The day after that her mother miscarried, and their boat puttered into sight of land.

People were so relieved to see the beaches stretch out before them that they jumped overboard. Out of their depth. Still. Many were unable to swim. But those who could swim helped those who couldn't.

Vân Ước imagined the shapes they made in the water, stars and circles and waving lines as they gathered, each to the other, making sure all were safe, all were included. Such generosity after the unimaginable bleakness.

This, then, has been the heart of her mother's misery: she had never forgiven herself for what happened to her sister.

‘Is this why we don't ever see my auntie, Hoa Nhung?'

‘I am as guilty as if it happened yesterday. She could have saved herself, cut her own hair, made her own face dirty, but instead she saved me.'

‘She wanted to help you look after the baby.'

Her mother had tears streaming down her face. ‘It was all for nothing. I couldn't save my baby, either.'

‘Mama, nobody could have made things better. I'm sure my auntie told you that, too.'

‘We never spoke of what happened.'

Vân Ước struggled to squash the giddy relief of finally being told something, no matter how heart-breaking. It was no worse than her anxious speculations. And finally, she had one true story to fix upon.

She tried to imagine her mother's burden, the weight of unspoken misery and shame, for all those years. She knew it was one way that people coped. They suffered all the pain and depredations of the journey, a journey for which they had forsaken everything. They ruled a line under it, and turned to the next task. If they were lucky, they survived. If they were lucky, they were offered asylum in Australia, or America, or Canada. If they were lucky, they arrived, and were eventually reunited with some family members. They looked forward. They learned to get by in a new language. They got jobs. They got on with their lives. They were so lucky. So they believed.

It was the most sustained talking Vân Ước had ever heard from her mother. They sat together on the sofa, and her mother let Vân Ước put an arm around her. She allowed Vân Ước to hug her, without pushing her away. And Vân Ước heard herself make the soothing sounds that parents make to children waking from nightmares.
There, there, it's all right. It's all right, now.

chapter 49

Because Jess was away
at camp and they couldn't have movie night, Vân Ước was officially home alone after school and homework club on Friday, so she finally agreed Billy could come and visit her. He figured he could get away with a ‘run' while he was grounded.

Her parents went downstairs at quarter past six to be collected by Bảo for their regular Friday dinner.

At six-thirty the buzzer sounded.

She looked around while she waited for Billy to come up.

The old dudes did a quick inventory for her:
Vinyl-covered sofa and chairs with a split in the arm of one chair mended with insulation tape/Plastic ‘lace' cloth on the table, large-screen TV disproportionate to the living space/Small kitchen, upright cooker with electric coil cooktop/He's going to be so impressed
/
At least she's hidden those horrible photos of herself as a child.

She couldn't help thinking of the scene in
Pretty in Pink
where Andie said to Blane that she didn't want him to see where she lived. And she lived in a house!

She tried to make herself feel okay by remembering that she seemed to be in the bubble with Billy. Nothing she did or said or was could be wrong. She felt the familiar excitement battling it out with sickness at the whole idea of the wish, more so now that she had the small glass vial, well hidden under papers in the top drawer of her desk.

Billy knocked. She led him in; they went straight into her room. Her room was pretty. She'd decorated it over the years with op shop treasures and it was a space that pleased her every time she walked in. Billy was drawn straight to her window.

‘That's so cool,' he said. The late-afternoon light was shining through the sixty-seven crystal decanter stoppers she had suspended at different heights with fishing line from the underside top of the window frame, forming a sparkling ‘curtain' over the entire window. She had rigged up an inner frame of wood inside the aluminium frame allowing her to arrange the installation.

‘People drop decanters, so lots of lonely stoppers find their way into junk baskets at op shops. Or they used to.'

As they stood, colour-washed in the flickering rainbows, Billy leaned down to kiss her, with an
mmm
sigh that sounded as though he'd settled somewhere extremely comfortable, and she responded for a dazzling, drowning minute before breaking away.

‘Sorry, I meant to say when you came in, I can't do this, can't do anything – not here.'

‘Are you sure?' Billy kissed her once more.

She was tempted, but resolved. ‘It's too thin – the space between the front door and here. I don't feel safe.'

Billy flopped down on her bed with a joke-groan of anguish. ‘You're killing me.'

‘I know. But we can't.'

Billy sat up. ‘I can't stay for long anyway, I'm supposed to be running. So, what do you want to do on Sunday?'

‘I don't know.' Vân Ước sat next to him on the bed. ‘I've never been on a date before, so I'm expecting you to do most of the work here.'

‘We'll have about three and a half hours. It's one of the longest films in existence. And I know one thing I want to do,' he said, smiling. ‘I'm taking you somewhere secret.'

‘Where?'

‘Duh. It's a secret.'

‘I've got somewhere I'd like to take you, too.'

‘Where?'

‘Seeing as we're playing it like this: also
secret
. But it involves food,' she said.

‘Does that sound like a couple of hours?'

‘Yeah, so maybe we can do one more thing – I'm happy to just be together, alone.'

‘We can walk.'

‘I can hold your hand. And I've got another food thing. We can do that last; it's right near the Nova. Are we picking Jess up there after the movie?'

‘Yeah. How are things going at your place, poor you?'

‘Arctic. My parents hate my guts. The hatred will culminate in our family “conference” with Dryden when my shitty attitude will be dissected and spread out on a table for all to see and despise. Hatred should diminish with time, with a likely thaw coinciding with footy season.' He stopped making light of it. ‘What freaks them out is the possibility that I've really stopped playing along with their whole dumb plan. Will it snowball? Will I remember to be a famous doctor, or has that also dropped off my list?' He gave her an apologetic look. ‘And for some reason, they associate it with you.'

‘
I'm
a bad influence?'

‘I tried to make it clear you are the opposite of a bad influence, but I guess you were the only thing my mother could pinpoint that had changed in my life.'

That stung; she hadn't really registered that she wanted the approval of Billy's family until she felt the unfairness of having earned their disapproval, and knew that it attached to her being socially unacceptable in their eyes. ‘If only they knew – I would have to be the most study-hard girlfriend you could find.'

‘I told them all that.' Billy flopped backwards on the bed and pulled Vân Ước down beside him. She started to sit up, but he said, ‘Just lie here with me.' He resettled his arm around her more comfortably, kissing her chastely on the earlobe before closing his eyes. ‘Tell me something to make me feel better.'

Make him feel better.

Make
him
feel better?

She thought about what it meant to be considered a bad influence, just because she was born outside a tiny social circle.

She looked up at the ceiling and thought about what her own family had survived, still so new and raw to her.

She thought about Debi's family during the Second World War, what they'd been through in the Warsaw Ghetto, then in hiding; how all had been persecuted, and most had died.

She thought about families in Gaza during 2014 when nowhere in the city was safe from Israeli airstrikes, not even schools, not even hospitals.

She thought about the schoolgirls kidnapped in Chibok, Nigeria, still not rescued.

She thought about the family from South Sudan who just moved in down the hallway, and the slash scars all over the dad's face and neck.

She thought about the millions of dispossessed people jammed into refugee camps all over the world.

The relentless relativity she applied to her own life bowed her down. Studying hard? Practising hard? Not as bad as living under the oppression of the communists. Tired after school? Not as bad as risking your life on a leaky boat. Feeling lonely? Try saying goodbye to your family, expecting never to see them again.

It wasn't as though her parents had ever said those things explicitly – it was enough to know it. She was nearly seventeen; she was perfectly capable of punishing herself. Inherited oppression and deprivation and fear was a gut-clench she never got to release.

Make
him
feel better?

She calmed herself down.

His problem was real, to him, right now.

She glanced sideways, ready to relent and kiss him, but his breathing was regular and deep; he was asleep. She watched his beautiful face in repose and tried not to feel jealous of this boy who'd never had cause to compare his daily woes with anything worse than other privileged daily woes.

It would take guts to hold the line and really step away from rowing. It was clear that neither his parents nor the school had accepted his decision as final. They still expected him to grovel, toe the line, and get back in the eight.

He'd be in freefall after so much scheduling, and planning, and control. Saying goodbye to so many desirable, known outcomes. His ancestors with their own ideas of duty and respect and obedience would frown on him; outnumbering him, they'd hurl their degrees and their trophies at him through time and space.

But he'd made up his mind. He was turning his back on this particular chapter of public ‘winning'. Saying goodbye to the security of consensus status. That was pretty brave.

She kissed him awake.

Walking Billy to the lift, she saw the stained concrete floor, the low ceiling and exposed pipes of the hallway with fresh eyes. She glanced at him; was he judging her surroundings as harshly as she was? Didn't look that way. All he seemed to notice was her. He blew her a kiss as the elevator door closed.

She had left a clear half hour between him leaving and her parents' return to be assured that they would not cross paths. And even so, she went out into the hallway and re-entered the flat sniffing (twice) to see if she could detect any giveaway Billy smell. She went into her room, smelled her pillow – she was happy to detect a tiny hint of him there – and found a single strand of his hair, which she removed, screwed up into a piece of paper and binned with forensic care.