His Illegal Self

26

The Peugeot coughed one last time and threw itself a yard farther into the deep dark beneath the overhanging acacia and lantana. Ahead there was a home light burning.

He now had Huck Finn in one pocket of the cardigan. You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The kitty was in the other pocket as he carried him up the path through the deepest pool of dark-between the two huts-and up the steps beside the papaya, and then into the big hut where it would just be them, and blankets, and a book, nothing better to imagine now. There was a weak yellow light inside, not sufficient to break through the murk of ceiling, just enough to show strange faces at the low table.

He stopped in the doorway, not knowing what to do. The mother clamped her arms around his chest and squashed him against her, breathless as a paper bag. He was so tired he could have cried.

They were hippies-who else! Arms and faces in shadow like a boring painting in the Met. There was a dense cloud of bugs around them, some flying, some dying, some bouncing off the lamp. They smelled of dope. The bugs settled on the boy’s sweaty nose and a scabby black moth rose suddenly from the table and smacked briefly at the light.

No one said anything.

Can I help you, Dial said. The only one she recognized was the Rabbitoh, one eye hidden by his raven hair.

A woman’s arm offered a joint. The lantern caught the green stones on her wrist, the small silver bells. Dial kept her arms around the boy.

We’re waiting for Jimmy Seeds, said the woman with the drugs.

Adam is gone, the mother said.

If he’s gone, said a man, he’ll come back.

Believe me, said Dial, he’s not coming back. We just bought this place today. Really, guys. I’m sorry. We have to go to bed. We’ve had a heavy day.

There were only five people at the table and all they had was a bag of dope and a teapot but they gave off a bad mood more smelly than the smoke.

She’s Dial, said the Rabbitoh, in case you didn’t know.

I’m Dial, the mother said stubbornly. This is Jay, my son.

Dial? This was a slender man with a handsome shaven face, a head of tousled tangled hair. He had a rubbery upper lip, maybe funny if you were his friend.

We’ve known Jimmy a long long time, Dial.

A dumb stoned laugh. A woman. The boy could see her in the gloom-curling thick black hair and big breasts loose inside her T-shirt.

The mother said, Adam got the bus to Cairns this afternoon.

The boy took out the book and gave it to the mother in case she should forget their plan.

The hippie woman pushed her hair back and shoved her long wide jaw into the light. I don’t want to lay some authority rave on you, Dial, she said, but Jimmy Seeds can’t actually sell his shares without the new buyer meeting the community.

She lifted up the lantern. Buck squeezed his eyes shut against the glare.

Anyway, you cannot have the cat.

She stood, revealing herself to be a head shorter than Dial. She had a thick waist and sturdy brown legs.

None of this is your fault, she said to Dial.

It’s cool, said the Rabbitoh. We just need to sit down and talk it through.

Sure you do, said Dial, giving the book back to the boy.

The boy let Buck slip away. Then, quiet as a shadow swimming in the dark, he climbed the giddy narrow-runged ladder to the loft. There he lay in the middle of the nest and pulled a fistful of tangled rug across his head. He waited for them to leave, blocking out their endless foreign voices.