Soft serve, p.7
Soft Serve, page 7
Pat wants to tell her it’s not the radio that’s triggering, it’s the situation they’re in that’s fucked. The trigger’s been pulled, sweetheart. This is life, and you’re in it.
Okay. We can have a break from it, Pat says.
The silence flickers as they work. I know it doesn’t feel like it, but you’re gonna be okay, love, Pat eventually says.
The radio doesn’t seem to think so.
No, I mean about the Ethan thing.
Fern tightens her lips and doesn’t say anything.
Have you ever heard of epicormic growth? Pat asks.
It’s clear that Fern hasn’t, so Pat goes on.
Heard an RFS bloke say it on the news last night. It’s the tiny green shoots you see on a tree trunk after a fire’s ripped through – takes a while, but it’s a plant’s resilience, its response to damage or stress. To push through.
Fern looks from her work to Pat and the space between them charges. Is that – is that how you feel? Fern asks, softly.
Not just yet. But you will. Soon. You’ve just been burnt. And although it feels like a third-degree one right now, in time it’ll feel like a burn from a lighter. A little prick.
Pat flashes a wicked smile and a wink, and Fern lets out a laugh.
Sometimes the most convenient thing isn’t the best thing for ya. I mean, look at this place. Pat gestures towards the hash browns, sweating their fat through their paper coats.
Once they’ve completed the rolling of the door snakes, and the tender moment has sewn itself up, they move quickly and calmly, placing their anguine protectors in the gaps between the floor and the doors, laying them down like offerings for the gods. The snake, who makes its home in the cracks, the messenger between the underworld and the world above. The snake, who sheds its skin to grow and heal, a process during which its eyesight is weakened and it’s at its most vulnerable. The snake, who rarely stays in the place in which it casts off its skin.
When all the gaps have been plugged, Fern turns to Pat and says, Should we fill the sinks with water in case we need it?
Good idea, mate.
* * *
Outside, Ethan and Jacob have attached the old hose to the tap in the carpark. They tie the tea towels around their heads, muffling their speech and giving them the appearance of two Banksy-esque street kids up to no good, about to throw a Molotov cocktail at a picket line. Ethan thinks of Jacob calling him brave and holding out the bouquet of fries.
Okay, I’ll stretch it out and yell when you should turn it on, Jacob shouts. He uncoils the sleeping hose, holding the head of it away from him as though it could attack him at any minute, and points it at the building.
Go, he yells, and Ethan turns the tap. Nothing happens. They’re staring at each other, puzzled, when the water gushes forth, taking them by surprise, and they both laugh. Ethan can see Jacob relishing the power in his hands as he controls the spray.
Underneath all the fear, there is a jolt of excitement. Whenever they are together, Ethan thinks, there is danger at play. Perhaps the looming existential threat behind them in the hills is acting as a cover, emboldening them, offering more space for recklessness. Ethan runs back to Jacob and watches him, hose in hand, shoulders back, as beads of sweat leap from the bottom of his orange hair down onto his freckled skin, fittingly typecast as the rebel – the fire the authority figure; the hose his middle finger. The sexiness of someone in their natural state! Ethan fights the mystic glitter of attraction. That unstoppable, illogical force that overrides everything, even in this moment, with death a few streets away, churning towards them on the ground and flickering in the air. Ethan is fixated on those beads of sweat – their saltiness, their coolness. He watches as they drip onto Jacob’s forearm, passing over his tattoo: a fishing lure that tapers down to a barb. Oh, how Ethan wants to reach out and touch it.
Jacob, still with one hand on the hose, slips his other hand into his bumbag and takes out his bottle of vodka. He holds it in his knees and unscrews the cap with his free hand. He lifts it to his lips and swigs from the bottle before turning to Ethan and offering him a sip. Ethan accepts, and tries to take a swig with the sexy nonchalance that Jacob had, but the vodka pinches his throat hard. It singes its way into his chest and floats up into his head. He takes another swig. And then another. And Jacob laughs.
The alcohol on Ethan’s lips causes a memory to light up in his brain. Eight months ago, under the cover of darkness, he sat next to Jacob in the playground by the rotunda in the park. Jacob was sipping from a can of Canadian Club. With legs dangling, they perched halfway up the centrepiece of the playground – an enormous plastic rocket ship, slyly taunting in its symbolism of adventure, of childhood dreams, of another galaxy far, far away from this one.
They talked about everything: music, Vegemite, sex, people from town, death, fishing lures, Taz, religion, The Rock, that one time Jacob came first in the walkathon and won a pink slip (donated by the local mechanic) when he was fourteen and didn’t even have his Ls yet. Their topics were as sprawling as the Milky Way above them, smudged in a free white gash. Ethan saw his chance to bring up the plan: with the wind of conversation at his back, he could try to get the kite in the air again.
You know, in Sydney you can fish in like a million places.
Yeah. But I know where all the good spots are here.
Classic Jacob, thought Ethan. Although impulsive, Jacob often followed a simple logic. He once shaved his head because he’d worked out the money he would save on haircuts and hair product would cover the cost of his vape for a month.
You’d learn, said Ethan.
Jacob lowered the Canadian Club from his lips, and Ethan reached over, took it and had a sip himself. It was sweet and warm – a connection, a secret kiss by proxy.
You can fish during the day and then work at a bar or something at night.
A beat. Ethan felt a tug from Jacob.
One of those ones down by the harbour, he continued carefully.
Sounds hectic. What would you do?
I’d find somewhere to work. My dad probably still has contacts there and he’s always got someone who owes him a favour.
Once the Canadian Club was finished, they meandered towards Jacob’s place. Jacob had been living by himself for the past three years. A couple of weeks after the expulsion, Angie had cooled and taken him back in, but everyone knew it wouldn’t work out. The house simply couldn’t contain them both any longer. So, after a while, he moved out. Ethan admired how Jacob scrounged together a roughly adult-shaped existence doing odd jobs, landscaping, two days a week at the IGA and always threatening to be lazily entrepreneurial, joking one time that he might start a business using all the newly licensed P-platers in the town to ferry people from the pub to their homes – a pimply, inexperienced fleet of drivers. Puber, he wanted to call it. Ethan could never tell if he was serious or not.
As usual, Jacob’s house smelt of Rexona and dust. An old man’s brown couch from the Salvos pointed towards his PlayStation; a gold-framed oil painting of a sailing ship that he bought for eight bucks at the markets hung above the fridge, which contained only Diet Coke and sweet chilli sauce.
Ethan sat next to Jacob on the brown couch, acutely aware that their knees were touching. He noticed that Jacob’s leg was still, not bouncing. They played Call of Duty and passed a joint between them. Ethan took shallow half-puffs.
Out of nowhere, Jacob asked, How come you haven’t just gone to Sydney?
Ethan felt the importance of the moment advancing, swords up, towards him. But the soldiers usually on guard in his brain were pot-mellowed, slowly dancing around a fire, weapons down.
Huh?
Like, if you’re so keen for it, how come you haven’t just gone?
Ethan tried to buy some time by pretending there was a particularly tricky move required in their game. I dunno.
Like, is it because of your parents? Clack clack clack of the controller. Or because of Fern? Clack clack clack. Or because of me?
Ethan sensed Jacob being exceptionally careful to give the options equal weight. That’s such a hard question …
Well, if you had to rank them.
I seriously don’t know, man.
Fair.
The tension was present but fuzzy. Ethan heard Jacob let out a tiny sigh and felt his leg start to bounce again. Ethan knew he hadn’t handled that as well as he could have, but he chalked it up as a small win. At least Jacob was thinking about the plan: he’d never brought it up on his own before that night.
Ethan’s high began to settle in, a simultaneous expansion of thought and shrinkage of attention, a languorous push and pull. The spacey techno pulse of the Call of Duty music accompanied his lofty, forward-leaping thoughts of what might happen. He pictured the two of them sinking into the couch in exactly this position, the image arcing through their thirties, forties, fifties and sixties, until they were the only two people left in the world. Just the two of them, sitting there, Ethan thinking freely and Jacob’s leg not bouncing.
Jacob rode Ethan home on his bike. Jacob pedalled and Ethan stood on the back. It was March and the night wind had thinned and detached itself from summer, trying on a sleeker autumn clarity. It cut past him and cleaned out the fug of his high as the houses began to grow in size and sheen. Ethan’s hands were resting on Jacob’s shoulders, and he could feel Jacob’s muscles under his white t-shirt as they moved in time to the pedalling rhythm.
Jacob pulled to a stop around the corner from Ethan’s house. When they’d both dismounted, Jacob slowly hooked his arms under Ethan’s and wrapped their bodies together in a hug. It was loose and gentle and entirely erotic. More than four years had passed since their only kiss. Ethan, though he had desperately wanted to, had been too scared to initiate anything again: it had to happen organically like the first time; he knew that innately. They stayed in this embrace for over a minute, in the deepest connection of his life.
Eventually, Ethan, afraid his parents’ faith might be able to see around corners, peeled himself away. Jacob pecked him on the cheek and with an elfish nimbleness was already riding off, the whirr and tinkle of his bike disappearing into the chalky pink dawn.
Ethan stood on the grassy verge. Breathed out. A sprinkler somewhere down the street sputtered into life and the magpies choired morning.
* * *
Through the window, Fern sees her brother placing the hose back on the ground near the tap, leaving it neatly coiled. As he and Ethan rush back in through the sliding doors, their skin wet and glistening, she’s wary of their tousled energy, the horsey skittishness they’ve brought in from outside. She reads in it some sort of danger and feels her superfluousness showing, what she sometimes fears is her tinsel personality. She has seen, at parties, how a great cheer erupts when certain boys walk in, a guttural rugby-type waheeeey. It’s a mystery to her. Not that she would want that reaction, of course – that would be humiliating – but she has always had the distinct impression that nobody even notices when she enters or leaves a room.
Her feet pull her in opposite directions. One, angry and excluded and hell-bent on retreating from these boys; the other, inching towards their protection, their familiarity. A battle between the unknowable and the known. The open savannah or the warm den. Fern wants to yell and scream at Ethan and Jacob, or show her disdain with cold-shouldery and passive-aggressive quips, but she’s stuck in here with them, she thinks, so she may as well make that as easy as possible. She nestles into them both, seeking the warm den, and they wrap their arms around her. They stand there in a three-way embrace.
I’m scared, she whispers.
Me too.
Me too.
* * *
Pat appears from out the back and sees the three of them leaning into each other in their flimsy teepee. A dull throb. Her son, the missing beam. This was where they would come, all four of them, to gather. Too young for the pub, so this was their place to celebrate, commiserate, waste time, connect, talk, build their bond – indeed, build their lives.
She tries to prevent her memory from corrupting this moment. But she’s powerless against it. Like a spike in a trap, the wretched phone call shoots up into her body. After Taz’s move to Sydney, their conversations had become serrated. Pat would needle him, perhaps out of envy, or maybe a feeling of abandonment. The day Taz died, he called Pat from the train on the way to his hang-gliding course, and the talk turned to work and money. He was yet to find a job, and Pat became irritated: You can’t pay for life with charm, mate. No-one likes a freeloader. Insult piled on insult and the call had culminated in Pat yelling, Fuck, you make my life difficult, before she hung up. And that was it. The last thing she said to him. The thing that she has convinced herself he was thinking about as he arrowed frantically towards the ground.
Her thoughts flash to Mike in a moment of curiosity about his grief. What memories haunt him? What routines has he cultivated to suture his life together?
She stands there holding her breath. How she would love to just close her eyes. She has the urge to glide down into rest, sleep, peace. She’s been having these thoughts more and more frequently, a drive from deep down (or up high; she doesn’t know) to shut her tired and itchy eyes to black. But no, she thinks, there’s work to be done.
Righto, she says, and they all turn to her as if waking up from a nap. Slow and blinking. She fixes her eyes on Jacob. What do we do next, Captain?
Jacob, mouth open, says, I dunno.
Well, make a call, mate.
She waits for him to remember something, anything, from his RFS training day.
I think you’re supposed to clear any plants and stuff from near the house? Jacob says at last.
Sounds like a good idea to me, she replies.
They look to the garden beds surrounding the perimeter of the Maccas. Sturdy, knee-high grevillea sit dry and stocky in the dirt. Pat never sees anyone come to water them. Between the hot summers and the frosty winters, it’s a wonder they survive, neglected as they are.
Rip ’em out, Pat says. Wait here a tick.
She goes to find a pair of working gloves, knowing they’re packed away somewhere in case a machine breaks or overheats. She finds a pair in the storage cage downstairs, scoops up a roll of black garbage bags and returns, holding out her loot. Jacob takes the gloves and Fern, as if she doesn’t want to risk being on a task with Ethan, grabs the garbage bags: I’ll help him.
Ethan, excluded, hands over his tea-towel mask to Fern and turns to Pat. She gives him a wink.
Looks like you’re with me, mate. Jacob, Fern, chuck ’em into the bins out there, alright? Be quick about it, we’re gonna start losing light soon.
They nod, standing side by side, brother and sister off to play at being gardeners. They both look at Ethan, as if wanting to say goodbye but not knowing how. Pat follows Jacob’s eyes to Ethan’s and sees it’s Jacob that Ethan is looking at. She notices the charge, their quickening breath and intense gaze. Something half-clicks inside her, a pilot light of a thought to be considered later.
Yep, says Jacob. C’mon, sis.
They walk out into the evening, and the doors close behind them with a nonchalant whoosh.
* * *
Ethan turns to Pat, and Pat turns to Ethan.
How you doing, mate?
It’s instant and comes as a complete surprise to Ethan. His bottom lip contorts and his throat catches and he collapses into unstoppable tears. They’re tears he’s kept in for years, for fear of what they might unlock.
Oh, pet.
He feels Pat’s embrace, her forearms taking his weight as he wheezes and dribbles snot onto her salt-and-fat-smelling uniform. His body is searching for lower ground, sinking as his knees get weaker, and she tries to prop him up. His fear begins to melt into her buttery maternal presence, so unlike his mother’s sleek and silky shield. He feels safe.
Shhhh. Shh. Shhhhhhh … Pat murmurs, as she begins to gently sway their hug.
A sniffly slow dance under the fluorescent lights.
* * *
Jacob gets to work, digging around the base of the plants like a terrier, in that way they do – where it’s unclear if they’re looking for something or hiding it. When he’s emptied a moat of soil around the base of the first bush, he tries to heave the thing out by the roots. His arms straining, his whole body pushing against the stifling heat, he puts one leg up on the wall to get some purchase, but he still comes up short, as though the plant’s roots are clutching on in desperation.
Will ya come and help me? he calls out to his sister, who’s standing behind him, pieces of ash sticking to her hair.
Fern moves forward, their hands meeting around the base of the plant, and Jacob does a countdown. On one, they both heave, and the thing rips free of its soil, causing them to stumble backwards. Dirt flings into the air and they’re both sent into a coughing fit, unable to catch their breath behind their tea-towel masks. Jacob is holding the plant aloft like a trophy, its weak roots hanging down in the air, trapped between life and death. A transplant to some better soil and it would flourish and grow tall and sweet, but Jacob throws it down onto the hot concrete.
He turns to look up the hill towards the school and sees the blotchy black smoke darken the tree-covered horizon. The smell is heavy and each new sniff hurries along the corruption of his memories – toasting puffy marshmallows around a campfire as a kid, birthday candles glowing sugary and hopeful, tentatively held first cigarettes, all now transformed, smeared into the smell of death forevermore.
* * *
Pat tries to shuffle Ethan to the closest booth to sit him down, but before she can get him there, she feels her knee about to give out. She can’t hold his weight anymore, and they slowly collapse on the floor, like newborn foals, limbs intertwined, and end up leaning against the side of the booth. Ethan softly makes nonsensical huffs and spurts that eventually become the recognisable sound of Jacob’s name, broken up with staccato breaths. Ja … cob … Ja … cob … Jacob … He repeats it, forming the word more clearly each time, as if he’s building up its strength.
