I have no idea why I kickstarted my mouth up again with a chickpea. I don’t even like hummus. I close my eyes, and do you know what I think about? Snowflakes, slowly falling onto my tongue.
When I find out Christmas has come and gone I am devastated. I imagine the table covered in crackers and the box of Darrell Lea assorted chocolates and candies, then the turkey and ham and peas and curried-egg sandwiches that Mum would make just for me. Even though I have no clue what William’s spread was like, I’ve missed out. Hadn’t even thought about what present I’d wanted and wishing is the best part of all.
William brings in a little mini plum pudding that he’d made just for me and Nurse Wendy gives us some custard to have with it. My tummy remembers all the food it has missed and I eat William’s half too. Then he gives me a once-in-a-lifetime present—a sterling silver fork that was 103 years old from Germany. It used to belong to Father Ewald and it was very strong because it had withstood two wars and a wall falling down. And there is also a gift from Aunty Cecilia and Jules: Tina Arena’s latest and greatest hits. Finger on the pulse, thanks very much ladies. Nurse Olivia even brings in a tape player so I can listen to it.
While I was asleep I figured out that Paris and my dad had always been a dream, real and imagined. But I am awake now. That night my metal fish had been in my pocket. Had I wanted to take it with me across the seas? I can’t say. But it pressed through my pocket and imprinted scales on my skin like I was a living fossil. Those small half-moons, a perfect kind of miracle. I lost it in the water, either trying to get the boat into the ocean, or Joni out of it. It’s swimming in that wide-open sea now, whether it wants to or not. I hope it means that Dad is free too. Despite what he’s done I miss him all the same because he will always be part of me. But, on the other side of the storm, I feel like we have let each other go.
The boy next to me here on the ward—Marvin—got burnt when a pot of boiling water fell on his arm when he was four. And he still needs operations when his skin gets too tight. His dad is a bikie who sometimes visits with his leather-jacket mates. They all have moustaches and wear sunnies even when they are inside. Marvin’s dad says he’ll take me for a ride on his bike when I am better.
I have to have rehab to rejig my muscles and bones on account of them hibernating for so long. I have a massive splinter deep down in my finger, a piece of that boat that might never come out. Everything hurts and sometimes even though I know what I want to say, I borrow the wrong words and they don’t make any sense.
They stitched my head up pretty good, but they still can’t tell me how much blood I’ve lost. I ask them to check my magic water levels, but the doctor says they don’t have a machine for that. Which is not true. When you spin a test tube of blood round and round, the magic water part always floats to the top. Then come the white blood cells, and then the red. I figure I was asleep all that time so my body could make more of everything.
Joni comes now that I am awake and we go to the kids’ room and play Connect 4 or Monopoly. I let him pass GO whenever he wants. We never talk about that night. But I won’t ever forget the look on Joni’s face watching me try to leave. The water had no intention of taking me out to sea. And it lured Joni to remind me of who I could not live without. Now I’m not sure if it was being cruel to be kind. But I do know the more time I spend with Joni the better my wounds are healing.
William plays games with me too, brings in his old domino set most days he visits.
‘Anyone for a half D?’ He smiles and nods like I’m in on some joke of his from 1963. That’s what they used to say in Kitty Village, his hometown back in Guyana. Looking for someone to play six rounds of dominoes which is kind of like a set of tennis. Game-set-match without the 40–loves and sweat. William moves his dominoes round like he’s gonna do some magic cup trick instead. Shields them with his hand so I can’t peek. I don’t really care if he sees my dots so I lay them flat on the table instead. You’re supposed to have three people playing, but we still make it work.
Some days a headache thumps behind my eyes so loud I have to have everything dark and lie with a wet cloth on my forehead.
William talks to me about time. How we set our watches, hearts, brains and feet by something that is just an idea. Only real because we make it so. I am only here because of yesterday clouds ripping apart the sky, throwing me into a broken-hearted today that might never ever change. Maybe time will run out and the future will never turn up. There is only one thing I know for sure. William has been my timekeeper all along. Waiting and hoping that I would someday find my way to him.
One day when the arvo tea trolley has been round I tell William I am sorry for it all. He puts down his Kingston biscuit and thinks for a long time, rubbing my hand back and forth.
‘Life is about making and losing connections. But too many people go.’
William went to church a lot while I was in hospital, prayed to God and Buddha and Ganesh the elephant for good measure. Then he’d go for a drive until he got to the Wylark River, park the car and walk alongside. Follow its path round corners and bends ’til he didn’t know which way was forward and which way was back.
Black skin and water. I’d got them both wrong, thinking they’d betrayed me. Neither of them is good or bad, but fear likes to make things simple.
William says I can’t keep secrets like the boat anymore and that I can talk to him about whatever I am feeling. Sometimes he might just listen. He knows about that pain in my gut thinking I’d let Mum down, so I promise to try. When we watch a one-day cricket match in the kids’ room, I practise not keeping a secret. I tell William that sometimes I wish a duck upon Brian Lara before he even makes it to the crease, ’cause the Aussies will always be my dream team even though the Windies rule the world. He smiles and says we’ll have to work on that.
Being asleep for so long changed a lot of things. I am more familiar to myself. It feels like waiting in line for ages only to find that all the tickets have been sold. You see another movie anyway and it’s actually okay. There are strange bits that don’t make sense but you watch it ’til the end ’cause the last song is quite catchy and it makes you feel good.
When I go home I am still in recuperation, which means that I can sit on the couch and eat ice cream and get Joni to put my apple cores in the bin so that I don’t have to get up. Joni snuggles in with me and watches cartoons and even lets me braid his hair because it’s getting really long. Any time someone comes near him with a pair of scissors he runs into my wardrobe. I don’t mind if he goes in there. He brings me the rest of his buttons and I sew them all over the holes in Augie Belle’s fur so the stuffing won’t come out. As well as being practical it also makes Augie Belle ten years younger. He looks pretty and interesting for the first time in his life. And when I sew each button on I tell Joni another secret about water. Whenever he feels sad and misunderstood like you can when you don’t use your words, he points to a button on Augie Belle and I tell him the secret again. Sit there for ages, he would, listening to all those water facts and stats:
Blue pearl: hot water freezes faster than cold water.
White swirl: water is the only liquid with a memory.
Black jet black: people can drink up to forty-eight cups of water a day. Forty-nine and you might internally explode.