The Fine Color of Rust by Paddy O'Reilly

Author:Paddy O'Reilly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Washington Square Press

17

AS WE HEAD off to Halstead along the road where Norm’s junkyard is the spectacular landmark, mounds of glowing red rust, the metal mountain of the south, I try to slow down the Holden enough to see properly, but not so much that anyone can tell I’m trying to stickybeak.

“Mum, you’re making me carsick. Can you please drive at one speed?” Melissa pleads.

“Tell me if you can see anything at Norm’s. I have to keep my eyes on the road.”

“See what?”

“Anything.”

“Well, I can see Norm and I suppose that’s his son with him.”

I resist the urge to veer across the road and stare. “What are they doing?”

“They’re staring at some piece of machinery.”

“That’s good. Very good.” Norm’s back to behaving like Norm again.

It’s a forty-minute drive to Halstead and the cinema. By the time we get there, Melissa and Jake have had three fights in the back of the car. Jake’s sniveling and Melissa is humming a pop song that is driving me mad. She’s told me five times already that her father’s friend Talee was once an extra in a movie about a Melbourne rock and roll band. I wonder if I can sneak away during the film and leave these horrible children to be raised by vagrants in Halstead. Or perhaps I could have them put in jail and fast-forward to when they’re adults. I’ll bake a cake for their release.

Inside, the cinema is cool, verging on arctic. Across the aisle, in the garish flickering light of the previews, I can see a family of four children and one woman. Something about them makes me think it might be the Gunapan family I saw at the waterhole. On the other side of me, Jake and Melissa are in the trance state that overcomes them whenever they’re put in front of a screen. They each have a box of popcorn and a fizzy drink.

This excursion has cost me a fortune. The kids have no idea, of course. Tony turned up with a bagful of expensive presents, and from now on they’ll sneer at anything I buy them. “Why can’t I have a console for the computer?” Jake asked yesterday.

“Because the computer’s so old it’s got arthritis and Alzheimer’s. It would be like buying Nanna a skateboard.”

“I don’t mind if she gets a skateboard.” He’s always been a generous boy.

I wonder how the woman with four children can possibly afford to bring them out to the pictures. I lean forward. The kids aren’t holding popcorn boxes, but they are eating something. Probably mixed sandwiches filled with sprouts and carrot or health bars she whips up in her free time and sells as a sideline in Halstead’s trendy cafés. Other mothers seem to be able to do these things. I reach across and take a handful of Jake’s popcorn. He whines something unintelligible, never taking his eyes off the screen.

At the end of the film, while the credits are rolling, Melissa yawns and asks if we can look in the Halstead mall clothes shops.

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