Bird North and Other Stories Read online

  ‘Should I plant spinach and silverbeet?’

  ‘I need an extension for my roller.’

  And at night he would trace his fingers over the dried paint on her arms and they would whisper so close that even the mice would miss the occasional word.

  Now the kitchen flowed into the lounge, and she crossed the room with long strides and slammed the bedroom door so hard the dirty cutlery shifted in their dessert plates. He went to the seat and picked up the ball. He bounced it once. There was a light breeze. It went through his backyard with a sound like the strands of a foil skirt against a woman’s skin.

  The work was finished. There was a German fridge and a special shelf for the aquarium she’d promised herself. They’d talked for a long time about a skylight and now with a long kinked wand you could open a window they’d had cut into the roof iron – with patience a person could sit at the dining table and see rescue helicopters, chip packets, and once a bunch of balloons.

  There was a knock on the front door. ‘Miriam,’ said Leighton. The gingko was hers and now also the remnants of their cup. Crossing the lounge he lobbed the ball towards his squash gear. It was Tuesday, and on Tuesdays he played squash with Matty. He opened the door.

  ‘Something exploded in my yard!’

  Miriam was American. Leighton called her a Jewess though he wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. She had dark hair and a nose like a gull’s wing.

  ‘A cup. Sonya and I were playing Donkey. She got one past me. I’ll collect the fragments in the morning.’

  ‘Donkey?’

  He heard Sonya draw the curtains in their bedroom. It wasn’t yet eight p.m. ‘It’s a catching game.’

  ‘It’s popular?’ She was an art dealer or a designer. They were not sure which.

  ‘It’s just a game.’

  ‘I don’t want you in my yard in the morning. A man lurking in a woman’s yard is likely to get shot.’

  ‘A yardbird,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ She leaned like a farmer with one hand on the door frame and the other on her hip. Leighton could see beneath the sleeve of her T-shirt. Once, when he was working in the backyard, he’d seen her in her window. She was standing on one leg with her arms ravelled high over her head.

  ‘A yardbird. It’s an American term right?’

  ‘I’m from New York.’

  He’d told Matty about her yoga. She wants it, Matty had said. All that nude yoga, 1960s stuff is coming back big time. Matty was their accountant though he liked to be introduced as a moneyman.

  ‘Shall I email you?’ Leighton said.

  ‘What?’ She looked like he’d chundered into a pram she was pushing.

  ‘The fragments. About a good time to retrieve them?’

  ‘You know,’ she said, ‘I once rode a mule into the Grand Canyon.’

  He noded, not knowing what to say.

  She looked him up and down. ‘A Def Leppard T-shirt and white shorts?’ She stepped back and held out her hands in what Leighton thought of as a Jewish gesture. ‘You dress for this donkey?’

  Leighton smiled. He knew his wife would be listening. Once they would have laughed – sat on the end of the bed and giggled their way to hysteria. Then they would have started in. Now, for Pavlovian reasons, laughter and hard-ons often went together. But then he wondered if it was Miriam. He liked the hair in her armpits.

  ‘I’m playing squash,’ he said. ‘I better go.’ He started closing the door. ‘Don’t worry about that cup.’

  ‘Worry?’ she said. ‘Why would you tell me not to worry?’

  They always played the best of five sets. On this night, because Leighton won for the first time, there came a turning point.

  It was a set all and Matty was serving for the third at eight points to six. He served across the court and down Leighton’s backhand wall. Leighton stepped forward and played a drop shot back across the court. Matty, who was heavily built though agile – like a rat on Viagra, he’d say – surged forward, holding the face of his racquet out and flicking the ball over the tin with a desperate lunge. The ball sat up in the middle of the court and Leighton, who’d been poised just forward of the T, stepped in and hit a long arcing ball back to where Matty’s serve had been directed. Matty stampeded across the court, hairy and muscular in his lucky lime-green shorts, and whipped an incredible shot back up the wall. Leighton, who’d relaxed thinking the point was his, thrust out his racquet and made a weak volley. With a satisfied grunt Matty stepped forward and speared an even more precise backhand down the same wall.

  Matty and Leighton were both similarly skilled and fit, but Matty always won. Sonya – a farmer’s daughter and ex-sprinter – said it was because Matty was tougher. ‘He’s a mongrel and he’ll suffer more. Have you ever tried killing a possum?’

  For once, though, Leighton hurled himself into the back corner and swung without fear. His fingers jammed and left blood on the back wall. His feet went into the air and the racquet shifted in his hand. But enough of it caught the ball, looping it down the court like a poisoned fly. Prone on the floor he heard Matty’s astonished yelp and watched him lurch to where the ball would kiss the front wall. Leighton scrabbled back to his feet. From the way Matty’s racquet was angled he knew he was going to send the ball short to the forehand court and he swooped: like a cannon attack his feet pelted over the wooden floor and then crack! He thrashed that ball cross-court and up to the bloodied back-hand corner. Matty didn’t move. He just gasped like a bayonet victim then looked in a surprised way at Leighton who, his brain shot high with adrenaline, tipped onto the heels of his feet, pumped his arms, and roared at the ceiling’s bright lights.

  ‘Jason Alexander,’ said Leighton.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Off Seinfeld. The guy off Seinfeld.’

  ‘The one with the hair?’ said Matty.

  ‘No, with the glasses. The stumpy one.’

  They were in the racquet club’s bar, directly above the changing rooms they’d used after their match. Still wet from the shower, Matty had said, ‘We’re having a drink mate. You can’t do that to a man and not have a drink.’

  Leighton had nodded as he pulled on a sock. There was no reason to rush home and anyway, he felt good.

  The barman – he’d once played in a Davis Cup tie against Ceylon – had been pleased to serve them. ‘And look,’ he’d said, walking around the bar, past the high empty tables, and to the windows where there were views of floodlit tennis courts. ‘Geisha.’ Three Asian women in tennis skirts were playing American doubles. The barman told a vagina joke – it involved making a nest of his hands – before going back to a stool in front of the bar where there was a cordless telephone and a phone book. But with each beer they ordered he became more agitated, finally exploding and pointing his watch at them like it was a ray gun, ‘You know this isn’t some sort of carnival.’ Which was when Matty negotiated the six bottles of beer – ‘I’ll have to take the lids off and don’t tell me the beer will go flat. It’s the bloody law.’ Then the barman pulled a screen down in front of the bar, sat the spare stools on the empty tables, and stomped down the stairs.

  Now, while the tennis players stood around an umpire’s chair, Leighton, who was normally deferential, chipped at Matty about his body-type. ‘George Costanza,’ he said. He got up and did a penguin-walk, waddling with his hands as flippers and like ears for his hips.

  ‘Jesus, you’re in a mood tonight,’ said Matty, draining a beer and racking it with the other empties. ‘Here, see you at the bottom.’ He gave Leighton a full bottle and took one for himself. He raised the bottle and Leighton, now no longer laughing, clinked his against Matty’s and brought it up to his mouth. The beer spluttered down his throat and reached into his nose. He looked at Matty who was cross-eyed but into the last quarter. Leighton tried to drink faster. It felt as far up as the back of his eyes then it was on his chin and making drips on the front of his T-shirt. Matty hammered his bottle on the table so the triangle of empties rattled.<
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  Leighton winced and shook his face. ‘God,’ he said, ‘arrgh.’

  ‘One more?’ said Matty, making a belch like a raven’s cry and holding another bottle at Leighton.

  ‘Eh?’ said Leighton, smiling and putting his hands in his pockets.

  ‘I gotta get home,’ said Matty. ‘C’mon mate, you won.’

  So Leighton skulled one more. He went slower and didn’t bother watching Matty. He took small gulps. It felt bad going down and when he finished he opened his eyes. Matty was no longer there.

  ‘Next Tuesday,’ said Matty from the doorway.

  And then he was gone. Leighton coughed and there was a spewy taste in his mouth. He put the bottle on the table. The Asian women were coming across the court. In white frocks and singlet tops, with tight shiny ponytails switching side to side, they were laughing with their hands over their mouths.

  ‘Right then,’ said Leighton, picking up his bag and racquet and heading for the stairs.

  He couldn’t remember making a conscious decision to stop. One moment he was driving, and yes, looking, and then he was stopping and, using the panel on the driver’s armrest, lowering the passenger window.

  She didn’t say anything, just looked into the car. There was something about her skin.

  ‘Um,’ said Leighton.

  ‘I don’t do um,’ she said.

  Leighton looked into the rear-vision mirror and then out the front of the car.

  ‘Don’t stress,’ she said, ‘they went by a while ago. Shall I get into your nice car?’

  Leighton nodded. He was worried his voice would come out as a squeak.

  ‘It’s sixty dollars for a blowjob. Hundred and forty for the lot.’

  Leighton cleared his throat. ‘Where shall I go?’

  ‘I want the money first,’ she said.

  He showed her his wallet and she got into the car and closed the door. He gave her three twenties and she put them into a black bag that had a safety pin instead of a zipper.

  ‘Let’s go to your place,’ she said.

  ‘Oh,’ he said.

  ‘I’m joking,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not like some of the other girls.’

  Leighton didn’t know what she meant. She was shorter than Sonya. He wanted to tell her to put her seatbelt on.

  ‘Go down Grafton Road. There’s a place beside the Caltex.’

  He pulled the car away from the curb. Another woman was sitting on a low wall in front of a hedge. She was dark skinned and wearing a tight white skirt with a wide belt and cowboy boots. She was more of what he’d imagined.

  ‘Do you play tennis?’ said the girl. She had reached into the back seat and was holding up his racket.

  ‘Squash,’ he said. ‘It’s a squash racquet.’

  She stood the racquet up on the back seat. In the rear-vision mirror, with its black cover, it could have been a passenger’s head.

  ‘Are you drunk?’ she said.

  Leighton stopped at some traffic lights. At a Mobil station a man was pumping petrol into a boat. ‘A little,’ he said. ‘I won.’

  ‘My hero.’ The skin on her cheeks was shiny like it had been glazed. Underneath, around her mouth and on her cheek and jaw, the skin was flaky. ‘Green,’ she said, putting chap-stick on her lips.

  He went through the intersection. Farther ahead he could see the red of the Caltex station.

  ‘Can I turn on the radio?’ she said.

  He nodded and she turned the radio on and then expertly changed stations. It was a song he hadn’t heard before. She sang some of the words and pointed across the road. ‘There,’ she said, ‘down there.’

  He indicated and stopped in the middle of the road. The indicating arrow on the dash flashed and clicked off and on. He hadn’t done anything yet.

  She looked at him. ‘I’m not giving the money back. Do you want it or not?’

  He accelerated. The underside of the car caught the pavement with a grated rock sound. Then they were going down a narrow alley with graffited fences on each side. The alley widened into a round gravelled lot. With the security lights from the surrounding buildings it could have been dawn. There was a bike frame in a puddle and a plastic rubbish bag against a wire fence. Leighton parked and turned off the ignition. The music went off. She opened her door and spat something out of her mouth. ‘Well,’ she said, turning back to him.

  He thrust his hips up, undid his belt and fly, and slid his jeans and underwear down.

  ‘I only do it with condoms,’ she said, ‘and that won’t go on until you’re hard.’

  He looked at her.

  She gestured in a way that reminded him of Miriam. ‘You didn’t pay for a hand-job.’

  It was shrivelled back in the fur and he took it at first with his fingertips. He closed his eyes. Sonya was there and he opened his eyes. Usually he would spit onto his hand, but his mouth was dry and anyway it wouldn’t seem right. There was the mosquito-whine of nearby neon and the sound of an air conditioning vent. He worked a little harder. The girl was getting something out of her bag and humming the tune from the song that had been playing. He tried closing his eyes again. It was better this time and he thought about the way they’d held their hands over their mouths when they laughed.

  ‘Okay,’ she said.

  A car was parked in his usual spot. Leighton swore, sped up the road, and did a U-turn. There was a space opposite Miriam’s house. He was desperate for a piss and since dropping the girl off had been holding the stem of his penis. Still holding on, he rushed diagonally across the road, through the gate, and down the side of his house. He stopped on the first tier, unbuckled his belt and started on the fly. But when the girl had finished he’d buttoned his fly incorrectly. It caused a delay. There was the wet warm feeling around his crotch, an erratic spray as he yanked his trousers down, and finally a long sigh as he took command.

  He was wiping his hands on the lawn when the door to the deck opened. Sonya. He scuttled down the lawn, dropped onto the second tier, and concealed himself behind a pepper tree. There was the gentle lap of her bare feet on the wood and then the stretch of canvas as she sat down in the dark. Just before dropping the girl at the Mobil he’d asked about the condom wrapper. He was worried she’d left it in the car. He’d regretted the question straight away, but then been relieved when she dug into her purse. She’d brought her hand out of the bag knuckles up and then slowly rotated her hand extending her middle finger. ‘Loser,’ she’d said, getting out of the car.

  There was the sound of his wife standing up and her chair going back. The same sound was repeated three more times and then the wood on wood shriek of the table being dragged across the deck. A light went on in Miriam’s house and then the door to her deck opened.

  ‘Hello?’ she said. ‘Who’s out there?’

  There was silence for a moment and then Sonya spoke. ‘I’m over here,’ she said.

  ‘Sonya?’ said Miriam.

  ‘Yeah.’

  He saw Sonya’s shape by the bird-feeder. She had her hand on the back of her neck.

  ‘I heard something,’ said Miriam. ‘I was going to call the police.’

  ‘I was shifting the table.’

  ‘Then I thought it might have been an opossum.’

  There was quiet.

  ‘Your husband’s car is opposite my house,’ said Miriam.

  Worried they would see the moon glow of his pale face Leighton looked down. The wet patch in his crotch was cooling.

  His wife hadn’t answered.

  ‘Your husband’s car?’ said Miriam again.

  ‘We’re okay here,’ said Sonya. ‘We don’t need the police.’

  He could see the top of Miriam’s head and her hand on one of the pot plants that hung from the roof of her deck. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll have to trust you.’ Her door closed and the light went off. In the dark the pot plant’s overflowing foliage was like the beards old men wear.

  On his own deck his wife was standing on the table. Looki
ng down or out he couldn’t be sure. She looked tall and mighty as if she had a quiver of thunderbolts on her back. ‘I know you’re out there,’ she said, as firm and clear as a newsreader. When she lay down all he could see were the outlines of her perfect feet.

  Trees

  I sit back into the inflatable chair and go gently across the pool. The kookaburras are still making a racket and Dad looks up as if it’s me making the noise then goes back to his phone book. He’s writing down the numbers of all the backpackers in Perth. My brother Carl has taken off. He’d been living at Grandad’s place in Christchurch and from his note it sounds like he’s depressed again.

  Dad’s cousin Coral collected us from the airport last night. She’s the one who told us Carl was here. He rang her a few days ago, drunk apparently, and said he was staying at a backpackers in the city. When Coral asked for a contact number and if he wanted to come for a meal Carl told her not to tell Dad and then hung up.

  I thought Coral was a little girl when I saw her at the airport. It wasn’t until Dad leant down and gave her a kiss that I realised who she was. She’s younger than I expected. I shook her hand. It was soft and she gave me a big smile.

  ‘Lot of budget accommodation in Perth,’ says Dad.

  I just keep kicking from one side of the pool to the other. Me and Dad have been planting out a block of land and living in a holiday home in Palmerston, north of Dunedin. It’s got red walls and a white roof. I call it the chilly bin. Dad thought that was funny to start with, but after a few months he didn’t like me mocking anything we were doing. It’s been a long winter and there’s not much left to say to each other.

  I roll out of the chair and into the water. It’s quiet and cool and I hold my breath for as long as I can. When I come up the kookaburras are still going and the breeze is making a whispering sound in the eucalyptus tree at the end of the section. I am worried about Carl, he’s my little brother after all, but it’s good to be away from that forestry block.