The Endsister Read online

  At recess one day, late in April, a week before we’re to leave, I sit in the autumn sun, thick as treacle, listening.

  Kasey likes Logan.

  ‘I don’t like him,’ Kasey protests. ‘I love him.’

  ‘Well, you like him and you love him,’ Tilly says.

  ‘Hm,’ says Kasey. ‘I’m not sure I like him all that much. He’s a bit of a creep. But I can’t help loving him.’

  ‘That’s not love,’ says Camille. ‘That’s raw animal attraction.’

  ‘Changing the subject,’ says Kasey. She offers Camille a barbecue chip. Camille nibbles at it like a mouse, one crinkly ridge at a time, as Kasey offers the packet around.

  The chip I draw out of the packet is folded over, curling into itself.

  ‘A wish chip!’ says Tilly. ‘Make a wish.’

  ‘I can’t believe you aren’t going to be here for my party,’ Camille says to me, for the twentieth time.

  I smile and shrug and crunch the chip, without making a wish.

  Luce makes meaningful eye contact with Kasey – so subtle! – and then stands up. ‘Come on, Tilly, Kase, let’s go for a walk. Maybe Logan’s playing soccer at the bottom oval.’ ‘Stay with me, Else,’ says Camille. ‘I’m going to miss you the most.’ When the other girls are out of earshot, Camille tells me casually, ‘You know how Luce has liked Sam for ages . . .’

  No. I did not know that.

  ‘Well, she has. But she stopped liking him, of course, when you started going out with him. Out of loyalty to you. But now you’re going away, well. Luce was wondering, would you mind if she asked him to my party?’

  I wonder if this is why Camille planned the party for after I leave instead of before.

  ‘I mean, you’re going away forever, yeah?’ Camille says.

  ‘Sam is a free agent,’ I tell Camille.

  I’m surprised to find that I can still breathe. Bodies are certainly efficient machines.

  On the bus Clancy’s gaggle of little girlfriends giggle and nudge each other. ‘Which one of us are you going to miss most?’ I hear one of them ask. Clancy blushes scarlet and mumbles something.

  Our house is bare of most things. We are already living out of suitcases, using only the clothes, books and toys we’re taking with us.

  Sam calls the home phone almost the second I walk through the door. (I’ve had my mobile switched off all day.) ‘Luce asked me to Camille’s party,’ he tells me.

  ‘So?’ I say. ‘You should go.’

  ‘If you were going to be here, I’d go with you.’

  ‘But I’m not going to be.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to go with Luce.’

  When I hang up, Olly says, ‘Poor Sam.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, a little impatient. Everyone loves Sam. I sometimes think my family wonders what he sees in me. ‘Poor Sam. Lovely Sam.’

  Sibbi says, ‘Is Lovely Sam coming to see me?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘But he loves me,’ says Sibbi. ‘And I love him.’

  ‘He’ll wait for you,’ I say to Sibbi, ‘if you ask him to.’

  ‘You’re only very young,’ Olly tells Sibbi. ‘No need to get serious now.’

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘That’s what I told him.’

  ‘I’m seriously serious,’ says Sibbi.

  I go into the bedroom that I share with Sibbi. Two open suitcases, two mattresses on the floor, and my violin. My music stand is set up in the same corner it’s always been, and when I face it, the house behind me could be whole, with cupboards full of all the familiar, friendly objects we have owned all my remembering life, chipped mugs and water-rippled books and sea shells and candle stubs and the things that make a home.

  I’m not sentimental, though. I’ve been more ruthless than anyone. I’d taken great pleasure in throwing things out, burning all my old schoolbooks and reports, my Year Seven and Eight diaries, the supernatural romance novels I was addicted to when I was twelve, paintings and drawings I did in primary school. At the last minute I decided I couldn’t bear to burn Teddy Bill or Mousie or Baby Frank, so I gave them away to the op shop instead. I stuffed them into one of those charity bins and walked away without looking back. Sibbi howled. ‘I love Mousie. I love Teddy Bill. I love Baby Frank,’ she wailed and wailed, and when she came home she was so angry with me she buried my phone in the back yard. The phone still works, except that when I call anyone they sound like they’re underwater. But I don’t know anyone to call in England anyway, and it will be too expensive to call my friends back home. We’ll keep in touch the old-fashioned way: email.

  Sibbi’s rage only pushed me further, cleaning out my wardrobe. In the end I kept hardly anything: some summer clothes, a few pairs of winter jeans, my boots. Nothing for sentimental reasons. We’ll have to buy proper winter clothes once we’re there anyway, Dave and Olly said, for proper winters.

  I like the idea of living lean. Borrowing books rather than buying them, discarding clothes as the seasons pass, living free of keepsakes and clutter. Not hanging on to the relics of my past. Not hoarding things for the future. Light enough to travel anywhere.

  Poor lovely Sam. Have I given him away too? I mean, Camille’s voice echoes in my head, you’re going away forever, yeah?

  I lift the violin to my chin. The notes stagger and stumble, trip and fail.

  The Mozart. The Mozart. The Mozart.

  SIBBI

  ONE DAY SIBBI wakes up and it’s the last proper day in Australia.

  Oscar and Finn spend it saying things like:

  ‘This time tomorrow Rick will be driving us to the airport.’

  ‘This time tomorrow we’ll be in the departure lounge.’

  ‘This time tomorrow we’ll be on the plane. Will we have taken off yet? Yes. Now we’ll be flying over Queensland, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia.’

  But for Sibbi it is a day of last times.

  At breakfast: ‘Is this the last pear I will eat from our trees?’ she asks.

  ‘Definitely,’ says Daddy. ‘The birds ate the rest.’

  At the post office: ‘Is this the last time we’ll get the mail?’ she asks. Daddy squeezes her hand.

  ‘Oh,’ says Mei-Ling behind the counter. ‘We’ll miss you!’ She gives Sibbi a Caramello Koala, and, after a moment, with tears in her eyes, gives Daddy one too.

  And later with Mama: ‘This is the last time we are walking down the track. This is the last time we are feeding the chook chook chooks. This is the last time we are fetching the eggies.’ The hens regard Sibbi with baleful eyes as Sibbi reaches into their little house for two brown eggs.

  ‘Yes,’ says Mama. ‘Shall we take the eggies to the Marshes? We won’t have a chance to eat them before tomorrow. We’ll have to ask the Marshes to look after Aunty May’s chook chook chooks.’

  When it comes time to say goodbye to the Marshes, Sibbi grows uncharacteristically shy and buries her head in Mama’s side and sucks her fingers, a habit she has almost (but not quite) grown out of.

  As they walk down the Marshes’ driveway, Mama stops and looks across at the hills, and breathes in a deep breath. ‘I feel a bit homesick already, Sibbi,’ she says.

  Sibbi takes Mama’s hand. ‘Can you really get sick of home?’ Sibbi asks.

  ‘Sick for home. Oh, it’s not a real sickness, Sibbi. More like a sadness.’

  ‘I feel homesad already too.’

  ‘I suppose London will be our home,’ says Mama. ‘Isn’t that funny?’

  Sibbi doesn’t answer. It is not funny. She has a feeling about London that is too big to name. Every day the feeling gets a little bit bigger, and now it is taking up so much room inside her body it feels like there is no room left for anything else, maybe not even enough room for Sibbi.

  CLANCY

  I SPEND THE last day roaming my territory, followed by the Davidsons’ black-and-white collie, Spider. Up to the back paddocks we go, and over the Marshes’ land, where the old white horse comes up for a nuzzle and an apple core. The kangar
oos look up, then go back to their grazing as if I’m as much a part of the hill as the kangaroos themselves, or the sulphur-crested cockatoos, who shriek and swing in the dead branches of an old gum tree, loving themselves sick.

  Spider and I sit down by the creek, swollen by autumn rains. Spider seems to realise this is a solemn occasion, because he doesn’t go looking for a fallen branch or piece of washed-up fence paling for me to throw. He sits quietly, his body pressed against me. Coloured parrots flicker in the trees. I reach out my hand and rest it on the ruff of his neck.

  ‘Almost time to go, old man,’ I say.

  But we sit, just a little longer.

  ELSE

  I STAY AWAY. I spend my last days with my friends. I sleep at Audrey’s house one night, and Camille’s house the next. We all catch the train in to the big suburban shopping mall and wander around the shops. We eat dumplings at the Teahouse. We see a movie, though I can’t remember anything about it later. I try to make everything as normal as possible, as if I’m just going on a quick trip to Tasmania or New Zealand, like the other girls do over Easter.

  ‘Wow, you’re being so cool about it,’ says Kasey. ‘I’d be freaking out if I were you.’

  ‘Imagine,’ says Camille, as she spoons cappuccino froth into her mouth. ‘You’ll be so close to Europe. Paris. Milan. Think of the fashion. Think of the shoes!’

  I try to smile, try to look as excited as they do. I look at Camille’s white tee and pale jeans offset with a bulky mustard-coloured scarf and chunky boots, Audrey’s neat fifties-style dress and cardigan and ballet flats, Kasey in her black jeggings, oversized hoodie and scuffed Cons, Tilly with her jeans and Blundstones covered in paint splashes. What will the girls be like in London? What will they wear? What will they talk about? What will they think of me?

  ‘Shoes?’ scoffs Tilly. ‘What about the music, the art, the history?’

  I rub an invisible spot on my Doc Marten boot with my thumb.

  We walk out the front of the shopping centre, where Olly is waiting in the van. Audrey gives me an envelope. ‘From all of us.’

  ‘Should I open it now?’

  ‘Later.’

  ‘I’ll only be an email away,’ I say. ‘Send me photos of the party.’

  I step up into the passenger seat, and wind the window down.

  Audrey wipes away tears and leans her head on Tilly’s shoulder.

  ‘Aussie Aussie Aussie!’ Camille shouts, as Olly revs the engine. ‘Oi oi oi!’

  Kasey chases the van down the street, waving both arms as Olly drives us away, honking the horn. When Kasey gets to the corner she keeps leaping up and down, still waving. I blow kisses out the window until I can’t see them anymore.

  ‘They’re such great girls,’ Olly sighs.

  ‘Don’t,’ I snap.

  I lean back against the seat and open the envelope. Inside is a card they have all signed and a ticket to a Mozart festival at the Albert Hall in July.

  Olly stops to pick up fish and chips on the way home. We drive the winding road, the paper packet steaming on my lap. We turn at Aunty May’s dark cottage to chug up the driveway towards the house on the hill. ‘This is the –’ I stop myself.

  ‘I know,’ says Olly. ‘The last time we’ll be coming home.’

  Our whole family sits on the lounge-room floor. We open the paper parcels of fish and chips. We don’t even worry about plates. We eat with our hands, licking the salty grease from our fingers.

  ‘This time tomorrow we’ll be eating dinner on the plane,’ says Oscar.

  ‘Our house will be lonely of us,’ says Sibbi. ‘Do houses get people-sick?’

  ‘Thank you, house,’ says Olly. She cups her mouth and calls up, as if the listening spirit of the house resides somewhere in the ceiling. ‘Thank you! Thank you for the shelter. Thank you for the dreams. Thanks for all the days and nights.’

  It’s desperately cringe-y, but I feel slow and sleepy, full of fish and chips, and I’m glad she says it.

  ‘Thanks for the music,’ says Dave. ‘Thanks for the peace and quiet. Thanks for the noise.’

  ‘The house is listening,’ says Sibbi. ‘The house says thank you too.’

  The last wood burns in the fire. The pobblebonks twang in the dam outside. Hester scrabbles on the roof. A tawny frogmouth hoo-hoos deeply nearby. Sibbi starts to fall asleep in Dave’s arms. There’s no telly to watch, and the books we are taking with us are packed tightly into our carry-on bags. But no one feels like going to bed. Olly, Clancy and the twins, Sibbi and even me, we drag our mattresses into the living room. We camp one last night near the fire, lying side by side in the small house that has been home to us for years, the only home that Sibbi has ever known.

  One by one, we drift off to sleep, until only I am awake, listening to the pop and crackle of the fire, like the house is talking to itself.

  ELSE

  I PRESS MY head against the window of the van and feel the gentle thrum of the engine vibrate through my skull. I watch as we travel through the gently winding country roads and green hills, then the strip malls and the strange new housing estates and service stations, until we hit the freeway and there is nothing to see but trucks, cars, grey road, grey sky.

  As Rick pulls the van into the airport carpark, I touch my heel gently to my violin case. Bending to pick up my backpack, I shove the violin back under the seat. I’m the last out of the van. By the time I get out, Olly has already entered the airport, dragging a wheely case behind her, Sibbi hoisted on one hip. Dave and the boys rush to keep up. I follow at a leisurely pace.

  ‘Want me to carry your bag?’ Rick asks.

  He’s not that much older than me. He’s bought the van to travel around Australia. I think about what that would be like, just getting in a car behind a steering wheel and pointing it in any direction you want.

  ‘No thanks,’ I say. ‘It’s not heavy.’ My backpack feels so light, my hands completely free. No one seems to notice that I’ve left my violin in the van.

  Olly and Dave rummage through bags, gathering the passports and tickets. Every time they look up, one of us has disappeared.

  Dave finds Sibbi by the plastic life-sized guide dog, petting it gently and whispering something in his ear.

  He finds Clancy, who originally set out to look for Sibbi, gazing into a poster warning of the demise of the Borneo rainforests. Orang-utans stare soulfully back at Clancy.

  The twins play a game of queue tiggy with each other, ducking and weaving, much to the amusement and consternation of fellow passengers. I wait to one side, trying to look like I’m heading off overseas on my own adventure, a young backpacker. I’m angry with Olly and Dave (probably unfairly, I’m mostly angry with Olly) for not noticing the absence of my violin.

  ‘You could help,’ Olly snaps at me, grabbing Finn on his way past and holding him tight.

  ‘If you’d asked my opinion,’ I say, ‘you could have stopped at one child and saved yourself a lot of bother.’

  ‘Thanks very much,’ says Finn.

  ‘Come on, Else,’ says Olly. ‘Just a little consideration.’

  ‘Why am I in trouble? They’re the ones running around!’

  The woman at the counter calls, ‘Next!’ and looks overwhelmed as Olly hands over seven passports.

  Finally we have our boarding passes and the big cases are checked in. We make our way towards the International Departure Lounge. Suddenly I see a group of smiling familiar faces. There is something shocking about these faces being here, in the alien environs of the airport, with its gleaming tile floors and fluorescent lighting.

  There’s Rick, the Marshes, Kasey and her mum (who is also a close friend of Olly’s), Mr Park, the principal of the primary school, who has taught all us Outhwaite kids, and heaps of Dave and Olly’s other friends: Kaime the fire twirler, Odette the sad poet, Alexei who cuts our hair and knows all the local gossip, Shane who owns the wood-fired pizza restaurant. Even Nan and Pop are there, looking older, and smaller, and as disappr
oving as ever.

  Oh, and Sam! Poor Sam, lovely Sam. He peels himself away from the group.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I say.

  ‘I’ve come to say goodbye,’ he says. His black curls bob down into his dark eyes.

  ‘Fine,’ I say, slapping him gently on the arm. ‘Bye, then.’

  But he hugs me tight, and I bury my face into his shirt, letting it absorb the dampness from my eyes. I count backwards from ten and when I pull away I have regained control.

  ‘Where’s your violin?’ he asks.

  ‘Checked it in,’ I lie.

  ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea? Haven’t you ever watched the baggage handlers throwing stuff into the plane?’

  I haven’t. But it’s typical that Sam has. ‘Bye, Sam,’ I say.

  ‘You’ll miss me,’ he says.

  ‘Not as much as you’ll miss me.’

  I look around. Everybody is laughing and crying at the same time. Everybody is hugging everybody, saying goodbye and stay in touch and come home soon and safe travels and take care until Sibbi puts her hands on her ears, opens her mouth wide and screams.

  Pop frowns. ‘We’d better start driving back, Nance,’ he says, and adds, ‘You don’t get as much mileage to the gas as you used to, I think they water it down,’ to no one in particular. Poor old Pop. It’s so strange to think warm, loving, chaotic Olly came from such a tightly wound, reserved couple as Nan and Pop.

  ‘We’d better head through customs,’ says Dave.

  ‘It was nice of you all to come and see us off,’ says Olly, and she and Dave gather the other kids in front of them. Sam puts an arm around me, kisses the top of my head, and whispers something into my hair that I don’t quite catch.

  We pass through the doors into the area restricted to ticket holders only. It’s suddenly very quiet. The silence is like a pressure on my ears.

  There are more queues in Customs and another game of queue tiggy until Dave roars, ‘Everybody! SIT down!’ The boys stop running, at least.

  Sibbi starts to sob. ‘What’s wrong?’ asks Olly.

  ‘Daddy made me cry.’