Writing Down Under

Pale Sun Over Sarajevo

Amahet

One More Step For Annie

Bonfire Night

Tookie Bikini

We're in the killing fields because Kali said I ought to go back - to face

my demons. I tell her I have none, never did; but she doesn't listen.

     So like her, with her gentle, impenetrable resistance. Today I’m

indulging her. She’s easy to indulge.

     It was so long ago you see, over two decades now and I, like the

others, have blocked it out of my consciousness. We have had to, to

survive. If I analyze what happened, what we had to do, then I might

doubt myself; begin to question whether we were right or wrong… and

then I would be at war with myself… conflicted… and I do not want to

     And my future is Kali, with her thick, black hair and serious eyes;

Kali, my little saviour, who has brought me here to exorcise demons

that don’t exist. Not even when I gave the order for the women to hold

the children to their breasts so we could kill them with one bullet - to

save ammunition. It was expedient - that is all - you must understand.

There were so many of them, spilling out of the barn like so much pig

swill from the trough. It disgusted me, seeing them trample over one

another, some wailing and screaming; some mute with terror, their

eyes full of something… I don’t know… fear I suppose, pleading. I could

never look at them. When I killed them, I made them turn their backs. I

did not want to see their faces, their trembling limbs; it nauseated me.

What did they have to be afraid of? Weren’t they going to meet

their Allah?

     It was just something we had to do, see? It was us or them. It was a

shame about the children, I think - a real pity - but sometimes

sacrifices must be made for the good of the all. That’s the way it has

always been. Triage.

     ‘Over here, Andrej.’ Kali’s husky voice laps at the shores of my

awareness. She is a beautiful woman my Kali, and even now after eight

years, I cannot deny her her whims.

     ‘Andrej?’ She barely turns her head but the graceful sweep of her neck makes me catch my breath, even here where the bleached bones of traitors can still be kicked up in the dust. We didn’t bury them; it wasn’t our job. At night the locals dragged them into shallow ditches and rolled them in, covering them over with the blood-soaked soil. Sometimes the wild dogs would come, excited by the smell of the kill, and paw at the graves until they unearthed a limb to feed on. If we went back to check the next morning we’d find the remains of the nocturnal feast scattered about the field, an oreo accident, white bones against black soil. But mostly we didn’t go back. What did it matter whether the infidels were properly buried? They too were animals, were they not?

     ‘You should come here, Andrej.’

     But I do not move. I do not want to come closer, despite Kali’s wide-eyed, questioning gaze. Despite her innocent desire to heal me. I have held it at bay for twenty-five years, this connection with my shadow… it does not have to be real. It is what it is. It was what it was. I would do it all again… us against them.

     ‘Come closer, Andrej.

     We should not have come back. I know we should not have come. They were just filthy Muslims. That is what I said to Kali that first day, when her eyes raked my uniform without expression, a cool, appraising look that bespoke suffering and… yes, understanding. I knew there were those who disapproved, whose eyes held unspoken accusations. You are a murderer. You are the devil. But Kali did not flinch; she held my gaze for a long, pure moment.

     ‘They were just filthy Muslims.'

     ‘Yes’, she said. ‘They were.’ And that was all. She did not judge me; did not think of me as a monster; did not want to put me on the stand to try me for war crimes. She had suffered. It was plain in the eyes that did not find me wanting, in the reluctant smile that came too slowly to the lips of one so young.

     Kali...the little girl orphaned by a bloody war. Was it religious? Was it political? It didn’t matter to a little girl alone, with no roots, no home, no mother or father. I wanted to make it better for her, to show her that ‘normal’ did exist, that she had someone to love and look out for her. And she came to me without hesitation, telling me it was fate.

Later, on our honeymoon, I learned she’d lost both her parents and a brother in the conflict. She opened up at last, on the Riviera…when she felt safe, wrapped in my arms as I drank in the honey of her hair, the ancient spice of her breath. They clubbed her father and brother to death, she said, and shot her mother. Raped her probably, though she couldn’t remember for sure. Her mother had come screaming from the farm house, holding her ripped bodice and blood dripping down her legs onto bare, bruised feet. Kali would never forget it though she must have been only five or six – but she remembered how her mother smelled when she scooped her up and held her tightly to her breast, clutching and rocking. She smelled of hog sweat and musk, of leather and rust. And after that, she remembers little. I have heard stories like hers, of little children who survive the carnage, whose mothers have thrust them aside at the last moment to lie stricken and shocked in the dust. They are discovered by peasants later, lying there, weeping quietly beneath the bodies of their protectors.  It was much later, after the war, that she learned of her father and brother - from records released from the War Office.

     Poor Kali, her thick black hair caught up in a knot – she does it one-handed somehow; a quick flick of the wrist with her arm behind her head, and a knot appears at the nape of her neck; slick and feminine. She is in every breath I take. I would not know how to live without her; without her body pressed to mine, her singing in the kitchen, her passionate arguments, the gentle feather of her fingers as she strokes my tired shoulders, soothes my battered soul. She is my life.

I am looking at the long, brown filament of her now, wondering what she is doing with me, a burnt out soldier twenty years her senior. Did she need to replace her father? Recreate the safety of her lost family? It does not matter. I can forgive her that – many marriages have been based on less.

     ‘I’ve seen this before. Things like this.’ Not looking at me, she thrusts her arms out in front of her. The movement is jerky, angry, bringing me back to the now.

     I know she witnessed the bullet her mother took in the back of the head. It would have been just like this. Somewhere in a field just like this, the insurgents would have slaughtered innocents, just like this; over shallow ditches in open fields, under the washed-out Serbian sky.

     ‘Majka lay on top of me.’

     Stop it. I cannot look at her.

     ‘It seemed like days.’ Still she doesn’t face me.

     ‘All I remember is the taste of dirt in my mouth. It caked my nostrils, burned my throat.  Majka’s chest crushed my face into the ground… I could barely breathe. With every breath I sucked in more dirt... I thought I was buried alive.’

     My poor Kali. Please do not tell me more. I cannot bear it. I thought she’d forgotten… blocked out the horror… like me.

     ‘I can never forgive them, Andrej. No child should ever go through what I went through.’

     No, no. I know it is true. Don’t tell me more, Kali. No child should ever…

     But how does she feel? What does it feel like to see the blood pouring down your mother’s legs? To witness the blank stare on the face of someone you love as the spirit leaves her body? It is too much for my Kali. Too much for anyone.

     Here, where she has brought me to exorcise my demons, she has found her own. Here, we slaughtered useless Muslims; there, in Kali’s world, the Muslims must have staged a massacre of their own. In her mind, here is there.

     ‘I swore, you know, Andrej? I swore… that if I could get back at just one of them… I would. To make them feel what I felt. To take away their reason for living.’

     Who could blame her? She turns to face me at last, her silhouette slightly rounded with the evidence of the child within; my child. My heart quickens, like it always does when I am reminded of the incredible miracle she carries.  My seed. My legacy to this world; a world of sorrow and pain – and yet a world of renewal and…hope. My reason for living, this tiny, swollen space, filled with infinite possibility. My son.

      Kali is looking at me now…calmly. She is always calm. Behind her the background begins to fade, the hollow ditch hazy, humming in some primitive rhythm, milky figures pulsing in and out of focus. Some are missing arms and legs. All of them are bowed in prayer. And they come… slowly… deliberately… without fear. They come for Kali, bearing her slowly, speechlessly, closer to the threshold of the shallow grave she stands upon. She is weeping.

     ‘Kali?’

     My head begins to prickle with sweat, great gobs of it rolling down my sides to puddle beneath my leather belt. Around me the world is breaking up – a distant hologram dissolving as I strain to hear its message.

     ‘Have you ever felt like that, Andrej?’ comes to me across the barren ground.

     ‘Like a shard of glass has pierced your ribs and is being pushed, slowly, inch by inch, into your heart? Until you just want it to end? To grab it with both hands and thrust it so deep to end the pain? Have you ever felt like begging for death, Andrej?’

‘Kali…what are you…?’

      It is only now I see the glint of steel.

      ‘Ka…lee!’ I wait only a moment – in disbelief. And then my legs are running, shaking, stumbling forward.

      ‘Ka…lee!’

      The bile seeps up to bite at the back of my throat.  She is looking right at me now, her mouth a dusky question mark. I see she has no fear. She is going to meet her Allah. I know now it must be Allah.

I am almost there. 

      ‘Kali! No! Please…’ I am begging. The glass shard twists my heart, spiralling slowly to lacerate the flesh, turning it to bloody mincemeat.

I reach out to wrestle the gun from her hand but all I see is her eyes. All I hear is her husky, beautiful voice, ‘I am a filthy Muslim.’

     Kali… my exquisite Kali… lying in the dust… vacant eyes lifted to Allah. Under the pale Sarajevo sun.

©  Melinda Jensen 2009

(Protected under a Creative Commons Licence as the intellectual property of the owner/author.)

It was over and all was quiet. I felt strangely melancholy ... disappointed at this anticlimax. I opened my mouth to voice my thoughts when the window on the far side of the room burst open, crashing violently against the walls. A fierce gale forced its way in, tearing at the heavy velvet curtains until they stood almost horizontal in their fight against the wind. A mighty drumming rolled in from the East and a deafening thunderclap split the heavens.

At that very moment, a slim figure stepped majestically forth from the swirling mists that emanated from the once-closed window, kohl-rimmed eyes slanting pointedly towards the small glass case on the mantel-piece. Ignoring us, the beautiful apparition brushed aside a swatch of gleaming jet-black hair that fell to her girlish hips, forming a glossy dark stain against the rich emerald folds of her gown. She strode purposefully across the room, bare feet falling silently upon rich red carpet. As she reached the hearth, she turned with a haughty stare, the meagerest upturn lighting her lips as she inclined her magnificent head towards me. Then swiftly she snatched the hand from its case, dashing the glass vessel carelessly upon the grate. And turning away, she vanished through the open window as quickly and silently as she had come.

The still of night returned. The glowing embers of the fire afforded the room’s only light, the candles having snuffed out in the sudden squall. In a daze, we looked around us, then at each other, unable to speak yet needing no words. The remnants of a lingering breeze rippled the hem of the parlour curtains, providing the only evidence of Amahet’s nocturnal visit – except for an empty glass case lying crazed and shattered on the tiled hearth.

©  Melinda Jensen 2009

Protected under a Creative Commons Licence as the intellectual property of the owner/author.)

A miniature version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein staggers across the room to meet me, arms outstretched, hair lit up by static from a wild afternoon on the swings. She is my daughter, Annie, learning to walk. Again.

‘One more step, Annie. One more step for Daddy.’

Biting her lower lip, she trundles forward like a saddle-sore cowgirl and reaching me at last, grabs my legs to smile up at me, triumphant. A beautiful cherub on spindly legs just released from two years worth of callipers; two years worth of physical therapy, pain and frustration. She’s struggled for a third of her life, this pale and patient child of mine.

‘Hooray! You made it, Annie!’

‘I made it, daddy.’ Infectious giggles fill the air as I scoop her up to bury my face in her delicious downy hair and cover her with rough daddy-kisses. As I look across at my other girl, my wife Stacey, busy cooking dinner, she throws a melting smile touched with sadness over her left shoulder. I know what she’s thinking. I don’t want to fly out tonight either. The endless business trips are wearing thin – for both of us - but there are so many bills to pay, so many medical expenses… and I’ve wanted the very best for my little girl. But it’s nearly over now; Annie is almost well again.

‘It won’t be for much longer, honey, I promise. I’ll hand the travelling over to…’

‘Bob. Yes, I know. How much longer, James? I’ve been listening to the same spiel since before we got married. It’s always after the wedding, after you finish the next project, after the house is built, after the baby is born. Bob’s young and single. He can handle it. You said so yourself. So?’

The question hangs between us as it always does. I know Stacey’s right. It’s time for me to let go the controls, to delegate…if only she knew how hard it is for me to do that. But I’m nearly ready – and so’s Bob. I’ll hand it all over shortly, next week even - or after the conference - but tonight, it’s me who must fly.

The North Queensland trips are the worst. The planes are small and stuffy and the air conditioning never seems to work. Sometimes I wonder just how well maintained these old planes are but there’s never been a hiccup, not in all these years of travelling. One last kiss, a lingering goodbye as I fidget in my pockets checking for pens, notebooks and other useless paraphernalia. It gets harder every time I leave, looking at those two pairs of loving eyes as I head out the door, knowing I might miss some important milestone in Annie’s life. I’ve already missed so many – the first smile; first tooth; the day she sat up on her own. God, I even missed the accident – Stacey had to handle it on her own, as she so often does…but she’s capable…and strong.

Looking at her now she seems not so strong, more vulnerable; a hint of red high on her cheeks as she flushes with emotion. Maybe she’s had to handle too much on her own lately.

‘Bye, honey.’

‘Bye.’ Her voice is a whisper.

The airport is depressingly familiar; hot tarmac; scraping metal steps. Same plane; same deafening noise. Even the crew looks the same as last week. Once on board and safely in the air I let the steady thrum of the engines lull me into that dreamy state where magic happens and demons do battle. I’m remembering Annie’s last squeeze, chubby arms wrapped around my neck and the puddle she leaves on my skin as she sucks her wet lips against my face. The images drift by, a collage of moments, happy and sad – the emergency room, the surgery, Annie’s long, brave recovery. I think of Stacey’s admonitions to be careful, the way she fusses over me as I leave because she’s never known how to say goodbye, not even for a night.

 She’s fussing now, shaking me awake with what seems like unnecessary urgency, forcing me out of my reverie.  Coming out of my fog, I look up at the neat, dark head and realize it’s not Stacey.

‘Sir, please fasten your seatbelt. We’re having some turbulence but it’s nothing to worry about. The pilot has everything under control.’ But an engine sputters, sounding like my father’s Austin A40 spitting and hissing it’s way up the hill. One look at the stewardess’s ashen face and her white knuckles gripping the edge of my seat, tells me the pilot might not be as much in control as she’d like us to believe. The plane is still shuddering as she weaves her way back down the aisle, doing her best to push dislodged luggage back into the overhead racks and soothe the passengers who are beginning to chatter furiously. An old lady reaches out for reassurance.

‘It’s alright madam. We’ll be landing at the next airport, then…’

But the wind is knocked out of the stewardess as the plane lurches violently downward and she’s sliding, sliding all too fast, to the other end of the plane, stopping only when her slight shoulders connect hard with the cockpit door. Despite the steadfast seatbelt my face slams into the headrest in front and a searing pain splits across my temple. I have to force myself upright, blurry-eyed and disoriented. The stewardess is not moving.

Sorry. Sorry lady. Can’t help you right now. In a minute. Nobody else even bothers to try. They are a mass of bloody noses, smashed glasses...but mostly wild, wide eyes that look ahead to the unknown. Surely the plane will right itself in a moment. The pilot has it under control, the stewardess said so – the stewardess who’s lying motionless in the aisle, limbs at an impossible angle. The plane plunges downwards.

For one surreal moment I seem to rise above my head as if, in preparation for death, I’ve disconnected from myself, floating above a body that is staring and speechless; me but not me. It won’t have time to say goodbye, this detached body of mine; it didn’t mean to leave them like this, without explanation or affection. There’s so much more to do and say. But the plane, unheeding, continues to plunge downwards, ever faster.

An acrid smell bites at the back of my nose. Smoke. Oh, God. Is the plane down? I don’t remember an impact. There’s blistering heat, fire… and I’m… here… somewhere in the dark; somewhere in the stinging haze. Dead or alive, I don’t know. Blood trickles into my left eye, dimming my vision. I’m alive, I think, alive enough to feel pain though I can’t see anything but thick smog and infinite darkness. Around me is silence.

‘Can anybody hear me?’ My voice cracks, scorched by fear and heat. ‘Please, somebody…’

No answer, not even a groan. I call at intervals, not wanting to be alone, willing voices out of the darkness until my own gives up the battle with the stinking air. Any moment now the wreckage will blow – I can feel it in my bones; hear it in the creaking, swaying vessel that’s disintegrating around me. Come on legs, get moving. There’s a crushing weight on my left foot and I sit up gingerly, not knowing where I’m going to hurt next, and slide my hands under the object to gauge its weight. It feels like a seat…not so bad. Maybe I can shift it.  Bracing my shoulders I heave upwards, nearly passing out with the effort but after a long, tense moment the thing shifts – just far enough for me to drag my foot free. Useless and in pain, but free. No time to rest.  My eyes are better focussed now and I spy an opening in the side of the plane, just big enough to crawl through. There is a harsh screech of metal on metal as something tears free from the plane’s carcass and free-falls to the unseen ground. Hurry old man, hurry.

Slipping on a slick of my own blood I inch forward, skating on my knees to reach the narrow opening. It’s jagged; dangerous – I’m going to hurt myself again by forcing my way out but there’s no choice. It’s this way or no way.

Stealing myself for the pain I lunge through and drop to the ground, gouging out more flesh as my skin catches on the snaggle-toothed edges of my escape route. The landing is worse; the six-foot drop ends with my injured foot giving way under me, leaving me in a broken heap as blackness threatens to close in. I must stay conscious; I must make it back to my family.

‘Come on, daddy!’ A familiar, lilting voice laps at me through the cold night air, keeping rhythm with the moaning wind. I must be losing it. The night is clear, with a bright waxing moon that allows me to take my bearings. We’re in… I’m in… a clutch of heavily wooded hills, just short of a clearing. The pilot tried to bring us down safely, poor devil.

At the rasping sound of swaying metal I collect my wits again. This is no place to hang around. One step… volcanic pain; another step… this may well be the longest journey of my life.

‘Dad-dee…!’ whispers urgently through the trees.

I’m coming, angel. Where are you? Tell me which way to go. In one of four directions there’s bound to be a highway and I think I hear the distant roar of trucks as they snake their way along sleek roads, travelling much too fast… but I’m hearing some strange things tonight. Despite the bracing cold I’m sweating; feverish; and wonder how much blood I’ve lost. Rivers of blood and sweat are flooding the plains of my eyes, making it even harder to navigate. I have to make a decision… fast.  She’s going to blow! I feel the heat rising, charging the atmosphere like a pressure cooker right before it jettisons its lid.

Ten paces in front of me is a gully – if I can throw myself into it, I’ll be protected… but I’m going to have to run… somehow.

Then comes the eye of the storm, a menacing silence. Run!  Like Quasi Modo I lurch and tilt and scrape my way forward, breathing through the pain. I think of Stacey giving birth to Annie and draw strength from her courage. Nearly there. One more step… and then… I’m falling, rolling into the ditch, the pain indescribable, impossible to live through. Then a rumbling, roaring thunderclap surges towards me and I lie, waiting, for the big bang to hit. Schrapnel scatters like a meteor storm and I’m on my haunches, hands over head, face in the dirt, trying not to think of the people back there – now in tatters, spinning in all directions. May God have mercy.Please just give me one more chance. And as the angels begin their mesmerizing chant I give in to sleep… glorious, welcome sleep. I try to pray, finding the well-worn words as surely as that eight-year-old kid in Sunday School. I promise God that if He brings me safely home I’ll never leave my family again.

‘Dad-dee, get up!’ whispers the wind.

‘I’m sleeping angel. Let Daddy sleep.’

‘No!’ This time the voice is not coaxing but forceful, commanding. Someone stamps a gym-booted foot, jolting me back.

‘Get up, daddy!’ I listen to my daughter; Annie’s voice; Annie’s face; Annie’s soft, sweet arms draw me out of my complacency and half-conscious, I begin to clamber my way back out of the gully, shuffling forward for what seems an eternity. The road noise grows louder with every step.

 ‘Daddy!’

‘Soon, angel. I’ll be home soon.’

How long has it been? Minutes or hours? Time has ceased to have meaning here in the wilderness. Pain penetrates to the bone as I stumble over the undergrowth, wrenching my already useless ankle. A few more steps… keep going, James. Nearly there.

‘One more step, Daddy. One more step.’

I hurtle blindly forward towards the roadside, catching hold of a ghost gum to steady me. Bright lights… getting closer…doors slamming… strong arms… blessed oblivion.

The brilliant lights are returning, slicing my eyelids, snapping me out of the black well I’ve fallen into. I strain to open my eyes but can’t force the lids apart. In panic, I throw back the covers and frantically reach up to touch my face, finding thick wads of bandages there. Gentle hands lay me back on heavenly soft pillows, patting me down, fussing, bossy… Stacey!

‘Lie down, James. You’re weak. You need to rest.’ Soft lips flutter against my own sore, parched ones and a flurry of awkward footsteps clatters across the room. A divine bundle is lowered onto the bed beside me.

‘You made it, daddy. You made it.’

You, so beautiful and terrible, stand for everything I’ve lost and I despise you for it. That’s why I’m carting you, paralysed and defenceless, out the front door, downstairs and round to the side of the house. Of course, with your great hulking weight pitted against my 45 kilos, it’s quite a contest but it’s no use defying me. I’m determined to win. Just one last shove and I can sit right on top of you and rest till my breath returns.

The axe is almost as big as I am but, as they say, ‘Hell hath no fury…’

One chop for the waste of time. One for building my hopes. A massive one for bringing them crashing down around my ears again. God, I could really get into this! A steady blow for every time my heart skipped a beat. And one enormous, bone-shattering strike for letting me fall in love. It’s easier than I thought it would be, this crime of passion. Not much longer and you’ll be battered beyond recognition.

Now to decimate you completely. I fumble about in my track pants looking for the matches. Must have dropped them somewhere out here in the dark.

‘Here, take this.’ My next door neighbour hands over his cigarette lighter. Funny, I didn’t hear them gather. But they’re all here, from pious old Maisie to Gung Ho Pete. Of course they think I’ve lost my mind. I can tell from the way they don’t bother to ask me what I’m doing. They’re jumping right down the rabbit hole with the white rabbit because the mad hatter, me, is wielding an axe. They even help me crush little wads of paper and toss it on top of you to help you burn.

As the bonfire takes off I drop the axe at my feet and stand back to watch you, my nemesis, face your fate. Regrets? Not one. O no, my beauty, you can burn, make no mistake about it. And you can take the house up with you for all I care; it’s worth nothing to me now.

Of course, as the blaze settles and reason returns, I know I’ve done a terrible thing. This innocent article that I’ve murdered is just a scapegoat after all - the embodiment, personification if you like, of the one who really cut my heart out. It was the most beautiful camphor-wood chest I’ve ever seen, carved with mighty dragons, stained dark and mysterious and oozing its heady aroma into the nooks and crannies of my soul.

‘I love you,’ said the card he handed me with a kiss. He’d never said that before, not in so many words. ‘Happy birthday, darling.’ And he led me, eyes closed, into the drawing room where, with a romantic flourish, he revealed my beautiful present. Six weeks later he left without explanation.

So here it lies, his gift to me, hacked into a thousand little pieces, blazing away into oblivion. Soon it will be nothing but smoldering embers and then, well ... you know the saying, 'Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.' The death of love.

© Melinda Jensen 2009

(Protected under a Creative Commons Licence as the intellectual property of the owner/author.)

I leaned against the guardrail, watching with gloomy fascination as sharks milled about in the brilliant blue bay below. There weren’t two or three of them, or even a dozen. There were at least thirty, zigzagging in agitated crosshatches through the innocent water.

Unsuspecting tourists swam there – right in the thick of it. And some time last year, after the summer holidays were over and I’d gone back to the city, Tookie Bikini had swum there too, defiant and fearless. I’d just learned it was her last swim.

Her real name – the last one – wasn’t ‘Bikini’. But the first time I saw her she wore a fire-engine red two-piece swimsuit that hung on her bony body with supreme negligence, for Tookie was built like a surfboard, all hard, shiny surfaces the colour of milk chocolate. As she darted about the blindingly white sands she looked like a half-eaten jaffa on the move. The effect was startling.

Tookie was nine years old and leader of the pack. In her hair was a single pink flower from an Oleander bush. So what if Oleanders are poisonous? It was behind her ear, not in her mouth? Our first fight was over that flower.

My mother had me convinced that all you had to do was walk past an Oleander and it would jump right out, paint you all over with venomous sap and leave you right there on the footpath, gasping your last. When I saw it sticking out of the mobile jaffa’s crinkled, black hair, my hand instinctively whipped out and flicked it clean into the water behind her. We hadn’t yet said hullo.

‘Hey, watcha think you doing, white girl? You some kinda lunatic?’

If there was any racial slur it passed me by. You can’t argue with fact and the fact is, I am white, outstandingly so. I look like a snow-cone without the flavour. It’s baffling how adults make such a fuss about colour – the grass is green, the sky (on a good day) is blue, Tookie was chocolate-drop brown and I’m so white the blue of my veins shows through.

‘That flower’s poison – you’ll get sick and die,’ said my eight and a half year old self.

‘I ain’t gonna eat it. You just jealous ‘cos it looks pretty.’

‘Am not. You’ve got no sense. I just saved your life,’ I huffed.

She thought about that for a full minute before calling one of the big boys over, a pimply, awkward kid in low-slung board-shorts.

‘Yeah,’ he stumbled, blushing under his sunburn. ‘She’s right. If you stick your fingers in your mouth, it’ll make you pretty sick.’

‘Could I die though?’

‘S’possible,’ and off he shuffled in his rubber thongs, scratching imaginary insect bites as he headed towards his gawking mates.

From that moment forward, Tookie decided her code of honour demanded she become my best friend, on account of my having saved her from certain death.

I might be a sun-deprived city kid but every summer holiday, when my family traveled to the island for six perfect weeks, Tookie loved me with a heart so big I could never figure how it fitted inside her scrawny chest. She introduced me to ‘Gramma’, her only close relative, and Gramma took me on just as her granddaughter had – no questions asked.

It was Gramma who gave me the news. I bounded up the two front steps onto the bleached boards of the verandah and knocked politely on the peeling door, always shy after a year apart. Usually Tookie pelted down the hallway, her long, flat feet flying over the worn linoleum, and shrieked with excitement when she found me there. But this morning, the tread was slow and heavy. I felt something twist inside me, like eels corkscrewing through my innards.

Gramma opened the door slowly and without a sound, took me in her arms. Like a rogue wave, fear washed over me, making my heart thump wildly and my eyes fill with hot tears. I didn’t want to hear what was coming.

‘Tookie…she gone, girl.’

I nodded, not yet breathing  – understanding nothing.

I knew Tookie could be hard to find. We played tiggy on the beach at night, down by the pier where the only light came from the moon and its reflection on the water. She didn’t wear her red bikini then – instead she was fitted out in denims and navy shirt that rendered her, with her dark limbs and inky hair, completely invisible. Eventually, standing stock still by one of the pylons, she’d give herself away with her toothy grin, a white, shiny crescent that glowed with mischief. We fell about laughing then, and chased each other over dunes and soft coastal grasses. But always, always…I found her.

My throat ached. ‘Where is she, Gramma?’

‘Them sharks got her. Them white ones that come every summer. I told her to stay away from them…that they’d take her away somewhere she don’t wanna go. But she don’t listen, Bunty.’

I flew from her arms in an instant, skidding on the bottom step while someone screamed in the air around me. It was like the keening of the island people around a funeral pyre. I’d heard it only once, watching the smoke spiral above the burning platform - the acute sadness of that moment never left me. Now, the wailing came from my own lips but I’d ceased to inhabit my body, trying to escape myself; to be anywhere but inside this aching chest that cried out for its best friend.

It wasn’t far to the secluded bay where the sharks bred. Nowhere on the island is very far, except when it storms and you have to batter your way against the headwinds. Then it’s like walking backwards.

But today I reached the bay even before I knew where I was headed. From my position on the lookout, I imagined the cold, dead eyes of the sharks; their rotting, serrated teeth that do unspeakable things; that must have done unspeakable things to Tookie Bikini, leader of the pack, heart as big as a haystack.

And I found my feet burning, scraping against hot basalt rocks as I flung myself down the hazardous goat-track to the forbidden inlet.

Stupid Tookie! She thought she could defy anything. She taunted the big boys, snarled at the wild dogs, gave cheek to the elders and rock-hopped barefoot over oyster beds without a scratch…but didn’t she know she couldn’t, just couldn’t, defy a pack of sharks and win?

For fifteen heartbeats I hated her. Then my surroundings came into focus. The cliffs of the bay wrapped me in a perfect semi-circle. In front of me was impossibly white sand and a stretch of creamy bubbles that led to the treacherous water itself – a serene, blue expanse that promised peace but delivered death. Behind me though, was something I’d never seen before, something hidden from above by the overhang of the cliffs.

The cave was perhaps eight feet high and twice as wide. From just inside the entrance, puffs of smoke exited in fits and starts and low, nasty voices rumbled with ugly intent. Every now and then I heard a snicker. Normally I would turn and scramble back up the track without a word but I was still existing somewhere outside myself; somewhere that made me careless and brash.

I took two steps inside the cave.

‘Get outa here, white girl.’

The shock of that voice stung me like a blue bottle.

‘Tookie?’

A familiar half-moon of bright white flashed at me from the darkness – Tookie’s grin.

I fell to the cave floor – sick, relieved, frightened, and confused. I could smell the damped-down fire, the dried up Coca Cola, the stink of teenage sweat and cheap deodorant and yet, unmistakably, the familiar smell of the jaffa.

‘I said get outta here! You not safe.’

I believed her - the cave thrummed with danger. I turned and fled, the sound of rough laughter and cracking knuckles a clear menace even in my present state.

‘Why did you say she was dead, Gramma?’

‘I say she ‘gone’, girl – but she dead to me anyhow. She got bad company. Them boys she hang out with? Them just white sharks – no good. They eat away that girl’s soul and she let ‘em. She don’t go to school no more and she don’t come home at night.  She don’t care about nobody but herself. I don’t want you to go same way as her. She gotta be dead to you too, Bunty.’

But Tookie Bikini wasn’t dead to me. She wasn’t dead at all. That’s what mattered. I’d saved her life once and I could do it again. It might take a long time; probably years; but if I hovered near, let her know I was there for her, keeping us both safe, then Tookie would come good again. I knew it. After all, her code of honour demanded she was my best friend…and best friends stick together.

© Melinda Jensen 2009

(Protected under a Creative Commons Licence as the intellectual property of the owner/author.)