Came Back to Show You I Could Fly Read online

  ‘Angie? Angela, you still here?’ he called in a voice as insubstantial as the movement of a leaf. He hesitated on the step. Women never went out anywhere without their handbags, he thought, hopes rising. Angela might have just gone into the main house for a minute, to see her landlady about something. Surely she couldn’t have forgotten that invitation of yesterday!

  Uncertainly, he went in and picked up the fallen mate to the shoe, paired them neatly on the chair, and then spun around as a drowsy voice, fluttering from the edge of sleep, murmured from the bed, ‘Who’s that? Is it you, Jas? I never…I couldn’t find…Oh my God, it was so cold, it was so dark…’

  She sat up in her tumbled bed and gazed at Seymour for a moment as though she’d never seen him before in her life. Then she picked up the alarm clock, shook it disbelievingly and wailed, ‘Oh hell, the bloody thing didn’t go off! Or else I forgot to set it or something dumb…now I’m going to be late! Be a love and make us a cup of strong black coffee, plenty of sugar, would you?’

  While she was in the shower he washed out yesterday’s cups and set the tray, transferring some of the sugar to a fairly clean glass bowl. There was a shrub just by the steps, bearing a few determined pallid flowers. Impulsively he reached out and broke off a sprig and set it on the tray next to Angie’s cup. She emerged from the shower and sat at the makeshift dressing-table to comb her hair. Watching her reflection, Seymour thought that each tug of the comb seemed to cause her pain and that she also looked pale, almost waxen, like the flowers. When she noticed the spray he thought she was about to cry. But then the corners of her mouth tilted upwards into a sparkling smile.

  ‘Why, mate, that’s terrific! That’s really sweet, putting flowers on the tray, you make me feel special. No kidding, I always know straight off if I’m going to hit it off with people, and I wasn’t wrong about you, was I?’

  Seymour sat, dazzled with happiness. Once, he remembered, he’d bought a bunch of early violets for his mother. She’d said, ‘It’s rather a waste of money, violets don’t last much longer than one day. Didn’t you know that, Seymour?’ Angie put on her make-up and when she’d finished, she picked up the flower spray and tucked it behind her ear. He stopped thinking about those other flowers, the violets.

  ‘Angie, if you don’t feel well, you don’t have to worry about going out,’ he said generously, still concerned about her pallor.

  ‘But I feel okay,’ she said, surprised. ‘Why shouldn’t I be? I’m always a bit slow and dithery first thing in the morning, that’s all, but once I’ve had my coffee I’m ready to take on the whole world. You wait and see.’

  ‘Coffee’s not enough for your breakfast,’ he said awkwardly, trying not to sound like Thelma. ‘You should eat something to go with it.’

  ‘Well, I never feel hungry till round about lunch time. Not even then, sometimes. Probably got a different metal…metab…’

  ‘Metabolism?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s the word. I’ve just got a different metabolism to everyone else. Maybe I was supposed to be born on another planet and got landed here by mistake. Saturn, that’s the one I’d choose, that one with all the gorgeous spinning rings. Seymour, does this outfit look okay? Do I look smashing?’

  It was as though she really cared about his opinion and, flattered, he nodded, though Angie really looked more suitably dressed for a party than a midday tram ride. She was wearing a dress that was sometimes blue and sometimes pearl green, and looking at it more closely, he saw that the material was textured in scalloped patterns which made the colours shimmer into each other. She also wore high-heeled silver sandals, and he decided that although it wasn’t the sort of thing people wore in the day time, it somehow looked just right on Angie, who was so beautiful.

  ‘Neptunia,’ she said. ‘That’s what I call this dress, because it looks like under the sea. Chosen my earrings yet? You did such a good job last time, I’ll let you be my official earring selector.’

  He opened the box and found a pair of large iridescent hoops to go with Neptunia.

  ‘Oh, I just adore summer!’ Angie carolled when they went out through the back gate into the alleyway. ‘What I’m going to do one of these days is nick off to Queensland and open a little craft shop. I’m pretty good at making things, you know, handcrafts and that. I got A’s right through school for art. If only I could get some money together, I could easily run a little craft shop and sell all the stuff I make. Shell necklaces and straw sun hats and umbrellas with flowers painted on them, things like that. But at lunch times I’d shut up that shop and just lie on the beach all afternoon. What a life, eh? How about if you came with me to Queensland? You could do with a suntan. Your folks probably wouldn’t even notice you’d gone, either, you’re that quiet.’

  Seymour, conscious of the length of the alleyway to the main road, of all its possible dangers, was too preoccupied to answer. He kept close to her side, even though no one else was about in the warm, still morning. Angela walked carelessly, as though the alley were a peaceful country lane, stopping to pat a stray cat, standing on tiptoe to look over a fence at a hanging basket of fern.

  ‘I’m dead crazy about plants,’ she said. ‘Always buying them down at the market, though they usually curl up their little toes and die on me. I sort of forget to water them. I used to have this really cute one, it was called…oh, chain of hearts, something like that. It had long strings that dangled down and all these darling silvery green heart leaves growing on them. Plants are like people. You can talk to them and get energy from them, did you know that? And someone at a university or somewhere brainy carried out these tests and found out they react to music and to fights going on. They’re sensitive. It’s like they’re crying if people have a fight in the same room.’

  Seymour hadn’t known any of that. His mother disliked house plants and Thelma had only one, a rubbery dark thing in the living room with sharp leaves like accusingly pointed hands. He knew all about quarrels taking place in rooms, though, but put that firmly out of his mind.

  ‘Where is it we’re going, Angie?’ he asked at the tram stop.

  Angela looked at him blankly. ‘Oh, are you catching the tram, then?’ she said. ‘I didn’t realise. I thought you were just being a gent, walking me up to the corner.’

  ‘Yesterday…’ Seymour said. ‘You know, you said to come by and we’d go on the tram and you’d show me this terrific place you know about.’

  ‘Did I?’

  She sounded genuinely puzzled, and in his embarrassment, Seymour began to apologise, not even knowing what he was apologising for. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just…you said. I must have got it wrong. Never mind, though, it doesn’t matter. I’ll just…’ He’d have to face the return trip up the alley all by himself, face all the dangers. Back to that bleak little house, where maybe he’d tackle some of the neglected school work, and perhaps sleep for a couple of hours. That would demolish at least part of the long day.

  ‘Hey, kid, don’t go nicking off on me!’ Angie called after him. I just forgot for a minute, that’s all. My memory’s like a leaky old sieve, I’m always getting into strife for it. You can still come with me. I reckon it’s a great idea, we’ll have an absolutely fantastic time. Only thing is, I’ve got to go somewhere else first, and it’s a long boring bus ride, all the way out to North Road terminal, last stop on the route. But once that’s over I’m not doing anything special. Oh, I do remember now, yesterday, and what I said I was going to show you!’

  ‘What is it?’ he demanded, brimming with renewed happiness.

  ‘Never you mind,’ Angie said mysteriously. ‘It won’t be a surprise if I tell you beforehand, will it? Got any money on you to help out with the fares? I’m a bit…well, sort of short this week. I had an account I had to pay up or else.’

  Abjectly he drew out the sixty cents which was all he’d managed to scrape together, going through every pocket he owned. It was in small pieces, mostly copper, and he looked at it sadly, wishing it were a hundred times that amount
. So that he could not only pay for both their fares, but lunch, too, and maybe buy her a chain-of-hearts plant, if they just happened to pass a plant nursery.

  ‘Last of the big spenders, eh?’ Angie said. ‘Oh well, we’ll manage somehow.’

  People glanced at her as they boarded the bus and the glances turned into open staring. Seymour stood a little taller, proud to be seen with such a spectacular grown-up girl. He hoped that some of her glory was spilling over upon him, that they’d all think she was related to him, his big sister, maybe, or a very young aunt. He knew without a doubt that she was the most glamorous person on that whole bus and probably in the whole world. She paid Seymour’s fare, then flashed both an enchanting smile and a little perspex card at the driver and said ‘Student concession’ when paying her own fare.

  ‘Student concession? Don’t you have to be at university or a college or something for that?’ he asked when they found seats up at the back and she’d put the card away in her handbag. ‘I thought you said you…’

  ‘Look at those boats on the river, Seymour!’ she interrupted. ‘Wow, don’t those guys all think they’re Superman! Though it’s not all that marvellous, that crew rowing stuff. Jas, that’s my boyfriend I told you about, he knows how to shoot rapids in a canoe and things like you see on telly. He was into martial arts, too, got as far as brown belt. You name it—boxing, rock climbing, Jas can do all of those things!’

  Seymour contemplated the magnificence of knowing how to guide a craft through snags and rocks, of being trained in martial arts, of scaling cliff faces. Maybe Jas would just happen to drop in to visit Angie when he was there, and offer to teach him a couple of basic karate punches or kicks or something. Then he could walk the whole length of the alley any time he liked without his heart threatening to burst from fear. Would it be too pushy to ask Angie if she could introduce him to her boyfriend? He turned towards her, but her head was on the seat backrest and her eyes closed. Resting lightly on the bag, her folded hands were as gentle as sleeping doves, but each time the bus jolted to a stop, her thumbs jerked inwards towards the palms, making small tense fists. It was hard to tell if she were asleep or not, but he didn’t disturb her.

  If it were sleep, she seemed to possess an inbuilt reaction to distance and correct bus stops. When they reached the terminal and the bus made a U-turn, her eyes snapped open immediately. She leaped up and pulled him out after her, shoving past startled passengers. She hurried him through a small shopping centre and turned into a long straight highway busy with lumbering trucks and vans. It was an ugly road, lined on either side by raw-looking factories and vacant blocks of land.

  ‘Come on, pal, don’t dawdle!’ she said rather testily, though he was doing his best to keep up. ‘We’ve got a long walk ahead of us. There’s supposed to be a connecting bus route along here, but the damned thing only runs about every two hours, so walking’s quicker in the long run. All this used to be market gardens and orchards once. Isn’t it a pity how they always go and muck nice things up? We used to drive down here to get to the beach at weekends. It was great.’

  ‘Who’s we? You mean Jas and you?’

  ‘No, this was when I was a kid. My parents and my brother and sister. See where that car yard is, there used to be a cute little house. You should have seen it, it had a weathervane on the roof and ivy round the windows. I always reckoned I’d buy that cottage and live in it when I grew up, but they went and pulled it down, the rotten…oops, language, I’d better set you a good example, hadn’t I? There was this pretty statue in the middle of the lawn, a lady holding a…oh, what do you call them, those things they played in ancient Rome…’

  ‘A lyre?’

  ‘Yeah, something like that. You never saw anything as nice as that old statue, though my sister reckoned it was tizzy. I used to call it Andromeda, but she changed it to Narelle.’

  Nothing about the long road was nice now. There was no footpath so they walked on the gravelled verge, conversation becoming impossible because of a convoy of passing trucks. Angie’s pace quickened even more in spite of the gravel and her high heels, and Seymour wondered why she was walking so fast, so urgently, but he didn’t like to seem nosey by asking questions. She glanced at her watch as they completed a long uphill stretch and turned into an asphalted driveway with a sign saying ‘Ambulances Only’.

  ‘It’s kind of a weird place to have a hospital, isn’t it, stuck out here away from everything?’ Seymour said. ‘Are you visiting someone who’s sick in there, Angie?’

  ‘No, nothing like that. I’ve just got to pick up something, some medicine I’ve got to take every day. Waste of time, really, can’t say it’s doing anything to…Well, anyway, I’ll only be a minute. Hospitals aren’t all that fascinating, so you don’t have to come in with me. Just wait out here on the lawn, okay? There’s goldfish in that little pond you can look at, only don’t be a dag and fall in. I’ll be back in a couple of shakes, promise.’

  He sat down on the concrete rim of the pool while Angie went up a ramp into a low red-brick building. It didn’t look like an ordinary hospital, he thought idly. Once he’d stayed with his father in a motel opposite a hospital and they’d had to keep the windows shut to block out the constant noise of traffic and people. But this place was very quiet, hushed almost, and the only people about were a few men sitting in cane chairs at one end of an open veranda. They didn’t take any notice of him. They just sat huddled into their own thoughts, not even chatting to one another. At first he thought they were elderly people. It was the way they sat, as though laden with the cares and loneliness of old age, but when he glanced at them properly, blinking against the raw sunlight, he saw that some of them were quite young men. He looked away and down into the pool at the goldfish instead, but almost immediately, Angela came back. She was walking normally, not in any particular hurry now, and appeared to be rather pleased with herself.

  ‘Well, I won that round!’ she said. ‘They weren’t going to let me have it just because I was ten minutes late.’

  ‘Why can’t you get your medicine from a chemist, like on a doctor’s prescription? Thelma’s got to take stuff for arthritis, but she just…’

  ‘Well, my medicine’s sort of different. It’s like when you’ve got to go to a specialist for something instead of an ordinary doc. Believe you me, if there was any other way, I wouldn’t be hiking out to this dump every day! Geeze, I hate that Marilyn! She’s the boss lady in there and does she chuck her weight around, but no worries, she backed off this time. A lousy ten minutes late…the fuss she made! Know what I told her? I told her I couldn’t help being late seeing I had to pick up my little brother because it’s school holidays and I’m taking him out for the day. So, Seymour, little brother, let’s go and have some fun!’

  Dear Dr Tyburn,

  I guess I’d better say thanks for getting me on the North Road program. I should have said it in the surgery instead of ranting and raving and carrying on. Sorry, I didn’t mean to. I was just feeling pretty low and miserable.

  Listen, would you do me a favour and not mention Nth. Rd to Dad if you see him at golf or anywhere around? I haven’t told them at home. They’ll only get their hopes up all over again. Maybe for nothing.

  I did what you said and went out to see Marilyn and fix up about times etc. I appreciate how you got my name put ahead on that waiting list, but I don’t know, doc. I’m sick to death of things. I was feeling so browned off I really was going to nick off to W.A. and start all over again where no one knows me, but like you said it would only be running away and taking the whole mess with me.

  Wish I could be more positive about North Road. It’s not going to work, you know! It never worked for anyone else I know, only Judy. But OK, I’ll give it a try.

  Angie

  P.S. You always were my favourite doc at Merken Clinic.

  P.P.S. Remember that time when I was six and had to have a tetanus booster and you told me I was allowed to say one really bad word under my breath if it hurt? Wel
l, talk about laugh—you know what I said? FUNGUS. (I used to think that was a really heavy swear word!)

  P.P.P.S. Having to go on that fungus program! It’s OK, don’t get your stethoscope in a knot, I’m not backing out. I’ll show up, damn it!

  (Fungus fungus fungus!!!)

  Chapter 5

  ‘Isn’t it just fantastic?’ she said. ‘You can have any mansion you fancy, only don’t you dare go picking number seventeen. I’ve got my own eye on that one.’

  Gresham Avenue: it could have been called Paradise, Seymour thought, as they walked slowly up one pavement and down the other. The houses were like great white ocean liners berthed in calm harbours. Decorative gates guarded wide sweeping lawns, stately roofs soared to the sky, and the whole avenue was fragrant with perfume.

  ‘Roses, roses, all the way,’ Angie said. ‘They can all afford full-time gardeners here on Nobs’ Hill. How about this one for you, Seymour? If I lived in number seventeen, we could wave across the street to each other in the mornings.’

  Seymour gazed up at the tall, elegant house and tried to imagine himself looking down from the diamond-paned window and waving to Angela in number seventeen. But the house was too grand. He didn’t know anyone who lived in a house like that, and couldn’t visualise himself in it. Angie had no such trouble.

  ‘Definitely number seventeen for me,’ she said dreamily. ‘Jas is going to buy it for me, soon as he gets out…soon as he gets himself fixed up with a job. We found this street by accident. We were at this great party in Ricky’s flat the other side of the tram track—wow, some party that was! Coming home we took a short cut, only we got lost and found all these white walls shining in the moonlight. I often come out here and walk up and down and drool. I knew you’d like it, too.’

  ‘Are you and Jas really going to buy number seventeen and live there?’

  ‘Sure we are. One day it’ll come up for auction and we’ll be there with a big fat cheque in our hot little hands. It’s going to be convenient, too, because there’s a shopping centre just around the corner, and that’s where I’ll set up my florist shop. A florist shop in a posh area like this, you’d make a mint! And just wait till you see the shops, they’re absolutely unreal, too!’