Two hours pass in a second and I jolt awake with wind fresh on my face like cold tap water in the morning. But this air has salt on its back. It’s a sea breeze. We’ve found the water. Not just a dirty puddle by the side of the road or a fifteen-second sunshower. But the source of all magic, wonder and imagining you can ever know. It creeps over me like a big tribe of ants, tingling and pinching my new skin. And then there’s a low sounding buzz in my ears, slowly building as it brings me closer.
We’re driving the coastline, weaving along the water like a sea snake. The bushy windbreakers clear away and then I have it. People always remember the first time they tried cheese fondue or heard Eddy Grant’s ‘Electric Avenue’ because they are both life-changing experiences. But do you remember the first time you saw the sea? The first time you heard waves tumbling over each other up the sand before rolling back into the ocean’s sun-scorched belly?
The sea pierces my heart with joy that day, stains it with a happiness so deep I wonder if we’d all been baptised and born again. But I’m lost and found at the same time. That joyful heart of mine is bled dry by betrayal when we turn the corner. Away from the water. Into suburbia, and down a quiet street lined with weatherboard houses pretending to be pretty.
Then I see them. Standing on the footpath like they are waiting for a late bus. My chest burns as that wolf inside of me howls with laughter. He’s been waiting for this moment the entire trip. ‘You can’t run from what you are, you silly, stupid girl!’
I want to tear him out of my body.
‘Dylan, you need to be brave right now. That’s all you need to do,’ says Pat.
No, no, no. This is a state of emergency. Immediate evacuation required. I spin the steering wheel and the tyres lose their grip. For a moment I think we’re gonna crash into the rubbish bins ahead, but Pat grabs the wheel and we swerve back onto the road.
We’re stopped dead in the middle with our bodies lurching back like the end of a rollercoaster ride.
‘This is where you belong. They’re your family too,’ Pat says, trying to get his breath back. And up they come, running in the rear-view mirror with eyes wide open, flapping their arms around trying to get to me.
I’m willing the car to transform into an impenetrable metal beetle that flies away. How can strangers be your family? He’s blackety black, wearing a cardigan and thick glasses. I look at the brown woman’s eyes and there’s my dad, the way she’s squinting and chewing on her bottom lip at the same time. The other one is blonde like Mama, but has her hair cut short, shaved on one side. Margie would say she should know better than to play with an asset like that. Each woman has a small arm wrapped around her lower leg, like an octopus tentacle. A little face pokes out between them, dark eyes glaring at me from under a mop of brown curly hair. Even though his mouth is shut tight I know he’s laughing at me. I want to scream at them all: ‘Stop looking at me! Can’t you see I’m invisible?’
Maybe I don’t want to be real after all. If I was a machine, then I wouldn’t be afraid like I was gonna pee my pants again, or worse. Pat’s spun a web of lies so far and wide I don’t know when it started or where it will end. I want to bust out of the car, run so fast they can only watch me vanish over the hill and say, ‘We lost her.’
All I can hope for is some divine intervention delivering me from evil. By the time I grab the doorhandle he is already there, peering in at me. Funny thing, his eyes are full of fear too. I can see through them and back to myself.
All this time believing my way to an imaginary boat only to end up in the middle of a crazy snotstorm because Pat is a gutless wonder. He winds down the window and mumbles to the old man who has walked around to his side. The old man nods and walks back to his house with the others.
And then Pat parks the car at the side of the road. ‘Dylan. I’m gonna sit in this car with you, and when you’re ready we can go and meet your family together. That’s your Grandad William, your Aunty Cecilia and well…I don’t know about the others.’
I’m not listening. I just want to hurt Pat like he’s done to me.
‘Mum didn’t love you. She never did.’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘Black men are trouble. You should know better.’
‘Like I told you, Dylan, it’s something deep inside that makes people do bad things, not a colour.’
Pat pretends this is a natural conclusion to the trip. Like it was always gonna be this way.
‘This is your house now. And your mum would be real proud of you.’
‘You’re a liar! You never said anything about him, not even once!’
That dark colour is rising in the back of my head like a tornado, ripping up my memories and good thoughts about the world. The wolf has won.
I wind the window down, smash my snow globe on the road and stare at all the little splintered pieces of glass lying on the ground. The water trickles through the cracks and soon enough only tiny white specks of snow are left. I’ve carried it safely all the way from Beyen and now all that precious care means nothing.
21 The wardrobe revolt
It is dark in the wardrobe and not like the one at home that smelt of Anais Anais perfume and soft cotton dresses that floated down from above like weeping willows onto my face. This one smells like mould and wrongness, and there’s a crack in a floorboard waiting to split in two. There are no fur coats so I can’t escape into Narnia, even though I want so bad to be having tea and crumpets with those friendly beavers. Fat lot of good that metal fish has done me. Of all the times and places I needed it to come good, and nothing. Maybe Dad is in on the joke. I can’t repel, reject, reverse or rewind anything now. Especially not in this dark wooden box I’ve found myself in. I hold the fish in my hand, running the top of my fingertips across the scales and wonder how I can get back to the car without being noticed.
I’d run into the house because there was movement at the station. Only primitive people squat wherever they are, so I went inside the house like it was the library toilet. When I finished I saw them all talking about me in the kitchen. That small boy was sitting under the table, just like I used to do at home. Rubbing some grubby soft toy against his dry lips. He looked to the door and ogled me. My cheeks burned and I shouted at them all like a wild banshee: ‘I’M NOT HERE!’
I stormed off to the front door but it was locked (what a surprise) so I ran from room to room until I found one with a vase of flowers on the desk, a bed and a wardrobe. I jumped inside and hugged my knees, waiting for everyone to forget that I was there. But of course this supposed family of mine were infiltrating my human right to freedom, so that was never going to happen.
And sure enough I hear those creaky floorboards drilling into my ears as they enter the room and stand in front of the wardrobe.
‘She doesn’t like runny eggs. And watch your taps because she likes water. I’ve written you a list. Oh, and the forks.’
That’s Pat telling them all about my habits, which is just rude because you’re not supposed to talk about someone if they are there, even if they’re inside a wardrobe.
I peer out of the little keyhole and see William hobbling onto one knee, and then squinting back at me. He shouts like I’m at the bottom of a well with a bucket on my head: ‘You want a fork, Dylan?’ He flaps his hand at Aunty Cecilia and she races out the door. I hear a clunking, crashing sound and then doof doof doof as she runs back.