Pecking Disorder

Six

Six – Sweet and SourDreams

I hear the front gate shut as I snuggle intobed. My father and Phillip are talking. More precisely my father isdoing the talking and Phillip is compelled to listen. I have apicture of my strapping brother following like a disgraced dog. Hehas failed to round up the entire flock of sheep. Stragglers areleft behind. The dog is chastised.

Both men assume I’m in the kitchen.

‘Not a word of this carryon to your sister or brother.’

My father’s voice hisses contempt. It soundsweird. Normally every word he utters is commanding and its effectsreverberate for some time. I gather nothing of the night’s closeddoor conference is to be revealed and will drag on into the nextday.

I listen for hall and kitchen doors to closeand imagine the conversation Fiona is having with my father andbrother. I can see my sister skillfully engineer her way around asituation that consumes two men. She sees and she acts. And sheacts because she has seen. Like me she is well used to my fatherhaving the final word. She can’t compete with a combination ofbirthright and pedestal. It’s a sort of family allowance.

As I strain to listen, I feel my heart pounddeep and fast.

Missed a beat?

The after effects of a warm bath have beeninterrupted. I am resentful. Yet as a member of a family, anunspoken event calls for enforced respect. The family might fall topieces at any moment.

I roll over on my side and watch the fullmoon try and gain access through the slats of the Venetian blindeach time the wind shifts it away from the open window. Now andthen the breeze pushes through the reminders of the hop season. Theacrid smell of the Pride of Ringwoods drifts up from the hop kil’and the hop grounds. One gust is dried hops. The next is the dyingdamp of the remains of vines. I anticipate the breeze laden withsufficient hop pollen to induce much needed sleep and the sweetestof dreams. But natural remedies are a long way off.

I roll over onto my other side as the blindrattles its protest. I am back in the dormitory at the hostel. Thebed above me is unoccupied. I open my eyes and see the shadow of abody peering down at me. It’s Michael. And he’s starkers.

‘Move over,’ he whispers.‘You don’t need these.’

I almost explode with the excitement ofanticipation.

He unbuttons my pajama top as I kick off mypants amidst a strangle of sheets and blankets. He is kissing meall over. I freeze between pleasure and fear. I listen to make surethe others are still asleep.

‘You like this?’ hewhispers running the fingers of both hands over my entire body. Ican feel the velvet tips of ten fingers trace a diagram of my veinsand arteries.

He is without charcoal.

‘Yes but....’

‘But what?’

‘What if someone wakesup?’

‘They won’t.’

He starts kissing me again. Apart from apleasurable paralysis in the rest of my body, my hands find hishead. I steer the kissing lower. I want to groan, to discontinue,to go further, to stop. He finds my c**k with his tongue as I findhis with my trembling hands.

Am I really doing all this? I must stop. Myheart misses a beat.

The power of right and wrong has unleashed aterrible battle. There are parts of his body I confuse with my own.The ability to delineate the desire in two bodies disappears. I amone and none.

A door slams and then another.

‘I’ll go then.’

It is Phillip. I hear muffled sobbing comingfrom his bedroom.

I also hear the bath running. It’s Fiona’sturn to clean up her day. She wouldn’t have heard Philip and myfather I surmise.

My father thumps up the hallway towardsPhillip’s room.

‘You need to think aboutyour family. There’s no need to be going on like this.’

Phillip screams.

‘f**k off. You say I’vecaused damage. Well you won’t have to worry anymore.’

Michael is nowhere to be seen, heard orfelt. I listen trembling. Phillip and my father often argue. Attimes they fling spanners and other tools at one another. But thereis something different here now. A fight is on but I still don’tunderstand what the battle is.

Should I?

‘Open up. I want to talkto you.’

My father tries to open Phillip’s door. It’slocked.

‘Get fucked.’

Phillip’s crying continues. A twenty twoyear old doesn’t cry. Especially if he is a man. There’s nothingmore confronting than man wail. The insults continue from myfather.

‘You’re like a bloodygirl.’

At that moment the bathroom door opens.Fiona walks quickly to her bedroom which is opposite Phillip’s. Myfather double takes for her.

‘Goodnight love. Sleepwell. See you in the morning.’

A moment later a loud burp from Mumindicates she has either just woken up or has been listening inaccustomed terror to the exchange between Phillip and myfather.

I direct my listening to the various signsof human life from behind three closed doors. I can hear a bit ofthe exchange between Mum and my father courtesy of century olddoors and widening cracks in walls and plaster lathe ceilings. Themuffled conversation isn’t clear but I hear ‘tomorrow’, ‘doctors’and ‘decision’.

Through the other wall Fiona switches offher light. A door which is obviously Phillip’s opens as quietly aspossible. He flies down the hallway. I can barely discern thetouchdown of his feet. My father and Mum are hard at it discussingthe night’s events. I owe Michael an apology for the rudeinterruption but count my blessings that the previous night is notthis night.

In the moonlight distributed by thedisturbed Venetian I can make out the spare bed in my room.

Not a bunk. Not the hostel.

The deliberations of adults means I am notgoing to sleep. Any thought of conjuring up a night of secretpassion is put on hold.

Mum opens her door and makes her way to thedunny. At first I think the loud rattle of the ninety year oldhandle is my father wishing to continue his verbal abuse ofPhillip. In preparation I pull sheets and blankets over my head.Mum’s coughing is hard to listen to but on this occasion I amgrateful for her ugly sound effects. Conveniently Phillip exits asshe arrives.

‘Are you alright dear?’she asks

‘What do youthink?’

He retreats to what is to be his bedroom forthe last time.

I wait for Mum to retire but then my fatherfollows in Mum’s and Phillip’s footsteps. He stops outsidePhillip’s room and rattles the doorknob. Immediately I rebury myhead in sheets and blankets.

‘Are you awake?’ hehisses, softening his voice but not his rancor. He waits for areply.

My heart gallops with the collision ofimaginings outside my own four walls. I want to build another roominside my bedroom so that I can’t hear what is going on. Or if Ican hear to know that I will always be protected. I want my familyto go to sleep and snore hostel snores until dawn. I want them allto wake up refreshed forgetting all that has been said this pastday.

But what has been said?

It is not until my parents have finally goneto bed that I uncover my head, shift from lying flat on my back andturn to face the unrelenting Venetian. It succumbs to astrengthening northerly and beats march tempo on the window sill.The lingering smell of the Pride of Ringwoods wafts only itsdryness. It is from the kil’. This time noise, smell and memory areinextricably linked. Each induces the other.

I hear Esmeralda grunting softly and wonderif she is tuned into the tension still in circulation. Thenocturnal mind travel eventually drifts back to my soft pillow andpropels me to think of myself and the decisions of adulthood whichare soon to befall me. In this state of surrender, I dare to dreamaway and dissolve an anguished twenty four hours. Like luminouseyelids the blind opens and shuts taking me in the first moments ofslumber to when I was thirteen.

I have just started high school and wish Iam back in primary. The label of ‘child’ has been ripped away to bereplaced with ‘teenager’. I hear the word ‘f**k’ from my fatherwith increasing frequency. It is a verbal necessity he must indulgein. He believes the world of his community requires him to play abrutal role. I am always afraid and especially of this rite ofpassage to adulthood. I am given a shotgun as a mark of mytransition from boy to man. I shoot my first rabbit. I am happywith my efforts. My father is scornful. The cartridge misses therabbit. I think I have shot the rabbit but the rabbit hasmyxomatosis.

Bunny keels over against my hobnail bootswith eyes full of pus.

It is hoped that I will play football andcricket and be successful at both. I need men and boys around me tosay ‘f**k’ with and to. A desire to play piano is inconsequential.In the scheme of things I have to be a budding classical pianist toachieve an approval rating on a par with success at sport. At alltimes I have to display boy becoming man for my parents. Teenageyears are an inconvenience and have to be endured until I turneighteen.

Marcus Cambridge is my maths teacher. Heintroduces me to algebra which I haven’t a clue about. But perhapsmy clueless state is because I am infatuated by him. His beautifulblue eyes and husky voice spoil my concentration and feed mycuriosity. His well contoured bum packed into trousers with twoback pockets has caught my attention. Marcus has a glorious tenorvoice and sings with several choirs. He conducts the MorningService via the school’s PA system. Each week a different classgathers around the microphone with Marcus to sing hymns and praisethe Lord in a government school.

I turn away from the rattle of blind slatsto watch the memory of Marcus.

His eyes meet mine and he smiles at me.

The Lord’s Prayer is in progress. I keepwatching my maths teacher. Our voices are one as we mouth the finalwords of the Lord’s Prayer. He comes towards me. Eyes drowning inblue lakes. The smile is welcoming and everlasting. I can feel hisbreath tingle on my lips. It enters my mouth. It is wrong that Ishould be seen with these thoughts about this beautiful man. I knowI am in a class of my own and I can’t stop. I fear all this will goover the PA. I want to go on and on. I am caught swallowing hiswords as ‘The Power and the Glory Forever and Ever’ is taken overby the rest of my class. A naked woman walks towards themicrophone. She is competing with Marcus during ‘Forever and Ever…’Sadly Marcus has to disappear. I am indebted that in the end it isthis woman from a travelling sideshow and dancing ‘The Seven Veils’who has aroused me.

Amen.

I am woken up by my moisturizer, desperateto resume sleeping so I can have a satisfying conclusion. I searchin vain. The pockets on the bum disappear into the distance. But ona subconscious level the power of persuasion has given me the end Ineed to my confusing prayer. My parents are happy. Will behappy.

In my stickiness I turn over again draggingboth top and bottom sheets around me like a cloak. This time it isfitting I should sleep.