Sliver Moon Bay: The Looking (4 page)

He comes forward, leans over me
to reach Starling. His hair brushes my cheek. It tickles. Of
course, I don’t move. I’m a lady crocodile sunning herself in the
middle of a hot afternoon. He kisses Starling. He hovers. I know
he’s thinking about me, but I’m not scared. We’ve been here before.
I know how to handle this. As long as you believe you’re asleep,
you’re asleep. And you will win.

It works. Chris stops hovering.
I’m expecting he’ll slither away now, the way he always does, but
he doesn’t. The door doesn’t shut behind him. Instead, the foot of
the bed sags, on Starling’s side. He’s sat down. I open my eyes a
little. I see him now, his rounded back facing me, his head tilted
forward and his right knee up, foot resting on the bed. He’s rolled
up his jeans and is inspecting his ankle. He shifts a little; I see
him touching it, grimacing, wincing and baring his teeth in pain.
He shifts to make his foot more stable. I see that he has a large,
blood soaked band aid stuck to his ankle. He peels it off. I see
the wound, I realize what’s going on. Assassin bit him.

9

I don’t see Chris in the
morning. He’s gone out somewhere, early. Just as well.

Lilian, Starling and I have
breakfast together. Lilian’s really nice to me. She broaches the
subject, pleads with me to be more careful when we’re playing at
the beach. I promise her that I will take better care. I mean it; I
really don’t want a repeat of yesterday. Then she promises to spend
more time with Starling, regularly, starting today. So I get to go
to school.

Lilian drops me off down the
road, at the fork where the bus comes to take me to school. The bus
comes, I get on and Lilian and Starling stand by, waving.
Starling’s licking her lollipop. There’s still a good deal left and
she’s really enjoying it.

At school, I imagine what those
two are doing. I’m hoping Lilian’s not letting Starling watch her
fairy movie too many times. She might be though cause it’s raining
and they’ll be stuck at home. And there’s no play dough today. I’ve
not made any. I don’t think Lilian knows how to make it so she’ll
have to make do with crayons. She can always get Starling to draw.
Except Starling likes to eat them. Then she gets a tummy ache.

The morning goes by quickly. We
have a gym session inside because of the rain. I hate gym but it
went off alright until we played a game where you have to pick a
partner. I’ve never liked to play them partnering games cause it
gets a bit awkward when I’m left standing alone. The gym teacher
stands beside me looking silly. I haven’t been to the gym for so
long that the silly bitch forgot how it goes for me. But I didn’t
get angry. I’ve stopped doing that a long time ago. So now the
silly bitch is my partner for a team building game of dodgeball.
She’s feeling so much guilt about my situation that she seriously
puts in a lot of effort and we eliminate all competition in a very
short time. We stand there victorious and the class is stunned by
this. They’re all out. Then somebody makes a funny face and
everyone laughs. The poor bitch thinks they’re laughing at me but
they’re laughing at her. She looked mighty funny moving her three
hundred pound behind, this mountain of jelly stuffed in her gym
pants, with such energy, and now she’s standing there breathing
heavily, jelly shaking, sweat dripping down her massive doughy
forearms. She’s a sight to behold. From the waist up she’s just an
ugly fat girl but from below her waist she looks like a wobbly slug
collapsed in a plastic bag. That’s what everyone was thinking. They
even talked about it later, over lunch. I didn’t get involved.
Wasn’t asked to, anyway, and didn’t agree with what they said
either. To me the silly bitch looked like a mermaid. They’re not
all beautiful. Not like fairies.

That reminds me. I hope Lilian
is coping with Starling. She’s not always easy to feed. Lunchtime
can be a fun place at ours if Starling chooses to throw a fit. Who
knows what’s going on at home when Lilian’s in charge? I wish I
were there.

The afternoon passed,
eventually, though it didn’t pan out like I planned, with me
cruising on the side line undetected, but it wasn’t all bad. I
might have learned something even. Cause I did pay attention some
of the time.

The bus drops me off at the
fork. Lilian’s not there so I walk home on my own. I don’t mind;
I’m thinking Starling’s having a lie down. They both might be. But
when I get home, things are not great. Lilian is very upset. She
doesn’t want to tell me what’s wrong. She locks herself in her room
without a word and I gather that the day has been exhausting.

So I ask Starling. She’s busy
at her little desk, drawing a big mess on it, with a fat blue
crayon. It’s down to a stub.

‘Doggie dead,’ she says,
pressing the stub into a crack in the wood. It crumbles under the
pressure. Starling looks up and smiles a blue smile at me. ‘Dead.
Dead. Dead. Doggie dead.’

But she doesn’t know what dead
means. Dead is sleeping. So she has learned something today
too.

10

‘He’s found the dog in the
shed. He says it was poisoned. He thinks it was you!’

Lilian’s crying. It’s midnight
and they’re at it again. Second night in a row.

‘It wasn’t me, Lilian. Stop
crying.’

Chris sounds surprisingly flat.
He’s very calm. He must be tired. He’s using his ‘inside’ voice.
Then he said something else but he was speaking too low so I had to
get up and tiptoe to the door just to hear him. But it’s Lilian who
speaks next.

‘Where were you all day?’

‘Seriously, Lilian? You playing
detective now?’

‘I called the trawler. Ralph
said you weren’t there.’

‘Oh, you asked the junkie. Well
done, Lilian. Good work.’

‘Drake said you stole his dope
yesterday. He said Assassin chased you. Is that true?’

‘I’m going to bed, Lilian. I’m
tired.’

‘Did you kill the dog?’

‘No. I didn’t kill the stupid
dog. And I’m done with this now, Lilian. I’m going. To bed.’

The door to their bedroom
closes. Lilian’s standing alone, in the living room. She starts
pacing the room, murmuring to herself, something. I can only
imagine what. But I don’t want to go there so I’m counting
elephants to see how long the self-comforting goes on for, this
time. Twenty elephants and then the television comes on, just
quietly. We’re all good then. Lilian’s going to stay up
tonight.

I go back to bed. I’m gonna
need my energy tomorrow.

11

Tomorrow came and went and
nobody noticed. I stayed home from school to look after Starling.
Chris went to work, Lilian went. Somewhere. She didn’t say where
but when she returned in the afternoon, she brought some sunshine
back with her. She was in a good mood for the rest of the day, even
after Chris came home. Then the next day and the one after, I went
to school. Nothing happened. Just the normal, boring stuff. Stuff I
like. But it doesn’t last and here we are, getting ready to live a
new day.

A lot more birds out and about
today. I see them from our back garden; they’re circling, crying,
arguing on the beach. I wonder what’s turned up. A sea turtle
perhaps, resigned to rotting on the beach, like the last time this
happened. But when we get there, nothing out of the ordinary is
happening on the beach. Just some agitated birds, that’s all. Ah,
well. Starling gets busy with her sandcastle. She’s got a new
bucket and a digger that Chris got her in town yesterday. So she’s
up for a big session.

I don’t fall asleep this time
though I am tired. It’s Saturday morning and I’m always tired on
Saturdays cause I get to stay up on Fridays, to watch a movie with
Lilian. Chris disappears into the shed right after dinner, and
after Starling’s in bed it’s just me and Lil’, and we watch a late
night movie, the kind not suitable for children, but on Friday
nights I’m not a child. Lilian loves to watch love stories, romance
and all kinds of girlie movies and she wants me there curled up by
her side. Cause that’s what us girls should be doing. Well, it’s
not like I have a lot of choice. Course, I sit there watching. It
gets excruciating pretty quick. For me, not for her. She’s in, all
in, sniffling through the soppy bits lapping it up, wishing she
were the girl in the movie. Failing that, she just wants to be
elsewhere, anywhere where there’s a man to notice her. It’s Chris’s
fault she’s like this. He should be paying her more attention; any
fool can see that, even a fourteen- year-old like me. He should be
joining in but it’s me sitting here, watching things that don’t
involve me now—and won’t for some time, says Lilian and she laughs,
she’s somewhat embarrassed, the poor thing, perhaps wondering if I
should be viewing this at all. But she’s wrong in thinking those
things will interest me when I’m older. They won’t. All this, this
kissy-kissy huggie-huggie kind of stuff is not for me. Or Chris,
apparently, as we’re about to find out. He’s snuck out of the shed,
and has been standing in the doorway, watching.

He stands in the doorway,
watching this situation; the film, Lilian clutching her hankie,
sniffling, and me cuddling up close with my arm around her. He
shakes his head, passes judgment, on the way to the kitchen to get
himself a glass of water—it’s foolish, mindless stuff and only
foolish, frustrated women can stand watching it. For once, I agree
with him. It is foolish and Lilian should not be crying. But the
hero dude has died just now and the heroine has fainted and Lilian
takes it all to heart. She’s a fan of true love. Oh, dear. I think
it’s time we all went to bed.

And in the morning, Starling’s
up extra early. She’s got her new bucket and her digger ready so
getting her to the beach promptly is the least of what is expected
of me, today. We’re going to build a biiiiig sandcastle today.

And so we’re doing it; digging
and piling up mountains of sand amongst the noisy birds. Starling
doesn’t mind. She likes lots of noise. It’s fun. But all of a
sudden the birds fly off and everything’s quiet. In the quiet, the
surf becomes loud. The tide’s spilling, in and out, along the sand,
swishing closer and closer, in regular intervals. It’s making me
sleepy. And it reminds me. Are we being watched today? No, I don’t
think so. He’s probably home, depressed. Sad, about the dog. It’s
weird thinking about Assassin dead. He was a nice dog. He liked me.
And Starling. Couldn’t stand Chris. Yes. He was a nice dog.

At any rate, old Drake’s not
here right now. I don’t see him. No cigarette smoke wafting down
the dune. Or maybe I’m wrong. The wind’s turned so I wouldn’t be
able to smell him if he’s here. So he could be hiding up there in
the dune, lurking above us, somewhere in the bushes, burrowed in
the sand like a giant mole rat. But one that sees real well. Of
course, he could be in his garden, spying from there. But I don’t
think so. I really suspect he has other things on his mind.

Into all this, a scream
explodes, tearing the very air it fills. The scream lasts a good
while, cartwheeling down the dune towards us like massive
tumbleweed. It stops everyone in their tracks. Even the birds are
falling from the sky.

Starling looks up at me from
her sandcastle.

‘Mummy,’ she says, points up
the dune. ‘Mummy calling.’

‘Yes, it is Mummy calling. We’d
better go home, darling.’

I pick her up and we amble up
the dune as fast as we can. Mummy calling, Starling repeats, one,
two, three times. Then we’re pedalling up the path. We crush twigs
and roll over stones and Starling’s bouncing in the basket like a
rag doll, looks like one with her oversized helmet head lolling
about. But I can’t slow down. The echo of that scream won’t let me.
It keeps screaming in my head. Outwardly, everything is quiet. So
quiet I hear my own heart beating the shit out of my breath. My
heart and my breath are fighting each other. They’re making me
angry cause they should be working as a team. To spite them, I fly
along the path. I’m scared. But at least I’m not alone. His breath
is here too, labouring somewhere close. So I was wrong. He has been
watching us, after all.

12

Chris gets there first. Old
Drake second. One after another, the men come out of the bushes,
flying towards Lilian. By the time I get Starling extracted from
her basket, they’re hovering over Lilian slumped on the steps of
the back porch. Chris is holding her in his arms. Old Drake
disappears inside the house.

‘What’s going on? What’s
happened?’

Chris looks at me, looks at
Starling. Lilian’s crying.

‘Stay out here,’ he says, nods
towards Starling, towards Lilian. He’s getting up, giving up his
seat for me.

I take over. Chris disappears
inside the house. He’s walking through to the front door. He opens
it and slams it shut behind him.

‘What’s happening, Mum?’

Lilian bursts into tears, full
on.

‘It’s White Sox,’ she sobs,
oblivious even of Starling who’s standing there with her helmet on,
reflecting sunrays with her oversized headgear, and looking
puzzled. An insane thought pops into my head and for a moment I
imagine Starling is a visitor to this world. She looks like an
alien meeting new species for the first time, craning her massive
head to see it better. It’s how you’d imagine it goes down.

‘What about White Sox?’ I say,
taking Starling’s helmet off. She throws herself at Lilian, burrows
into her shoulder.

THE. CAT. IS. DEAD. Lilian
mouths to me soundlessly over Starling’s head.

‘How?’

KILLED. BY. AN. ARROW.

Inside, new noises erupt.

‘You going to deny it, dad?
It’s your arrow, man! What were you thinking?